


The Art of Cultivation

by feistymuffin



Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Baggage, F/M, M/M, Mark's a farmer and Jack is a painter, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 18:23:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 49,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8589007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feistymuffin/pseuds/feistymuffin
Summary: Jack needs a place to stay in America, and Mark just so happens to have a room for rent.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this work is ridiculously fuelled by random and scattered talks with GalaxyGhosty and to be honest it may as well be gifted to her because it's half her baby with all the help she gave

As usual, his alarm begins blaring at a shiny 4:30 a.m. Mark groans, a long mournful sound, as he rolls over. Tucking his blanket up to his chin Mark defiantly shuts his eyes and ignores it until the shrilling starts to grate on his nerves, and only then does he get out of bed. He throws on a flannel over the tank top he slept in and pulls on a pair of jeans from his dresser.

Plodding downstairs he sees Chica, his golden retriever, trot up to the bottom step and sit patiently to wait for him. He scratches her ears in greeting when he reaches her and then heads directly into the kitchen for the coffee maker. Mark fills it with fresh coffee grinds and water, then sets it to percolate and sighs heavily.

Chica follows him into the kitchen and licks his hand, sitting at his feet and looking up expectantly. "I'm getting to it, alright?" Mark tells her, rubbing his eyes. "Patience is a virtue, you know." Chica's tail thumps twice against the travertine tile. Mark gives her a long look before sighing again. "Fine. You big doof." With a huff he pushes away from the counter and grabs Chica's dish off the floor. He refills it with kibbles from the plastic tub by the back door, which leads out onto the porch and then beyond to the fields, and sets it back down for her. Chica happily goes about eating, her tail swaying.

Mark takes down two mugs from the cupboard and places them by the coffee machine, then walks back to the stairs and hollers up them, "Wade! Get your ass up!" He waits, and after a moment he hears a moderately-awake yell in return so he comes back to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. Mark sets the pot back to continue dripping.

He brings his coffee and goes out the back door, leaving it open for Chica to follow. Sipping his morning pick-me-up, Mark stares out over the back yard and further out to the fields, newly lit by the rising sun. His farm, he thinks with a sense of accomplishment. His hard work all come together into an expansive farmland, bountiful and rich with character.

He's watching Chica chase a ballsy squirrel across the lawn when Wade appears at his elbow, leaning on the porch railing with his own mug in hand. "Gets prettier every day," Wade comments, looking out at the farm.

"Harder to work, too," Mark snorts, and Wade chuckles. "C'mon, time to start the day."

The morning passes with tomato, eggplant, cucumber, bell pepper, and pea picking. Mark directs the part-time staff, mostly college students with excess time on their hands thanks to the summer months, to the ends of the rows while he and Wade tackle the middles. Sunlight beats on his back as he works, positively soaking Mark with sweat by the time they pause for lunch.

Mark plucks tomato after tomato, lifting his head when Wade walks up the row to him. Wade holds out a water bottle and a sandwich in a plastic baggy. "One gourmet luncheon for a Mr. Fischbach," Wade muses.

Chuckling, Mark takes both items from him and drops from his crouch onto his butt. He upends the water bottle to his mouth, gulping mouthfuls until it's completely empty. Then he opens the sandwich baggy and takes two huge bites before saying around his food, "Fanks."

"I pray for the human that gets saddled with you permanently," Wade tells him, grimacing. He sits in the dirt and opens his own sandwich bag. "Speaking of. Ever hear back from that philosophy major? The blonde one with the tattoo of a Chinese dragon. She was cool."

Mark shrugs, chewing before he answers, "She got back with her boyfriend. Which, good for them, but a bummer for me." 

"Bummer is right," Wade says, frowning. "That's like the eighth person this year that's blown you off. What exactly are you doing to deter all of them?" He pauses thoughtfully. "Are you sure you're not keeping a closet full of your toenail clippings, or drinking your own urine?"

"Ha ha," Mark says sarcastically. "Jackass." Mark puts his index finger to his chin, pantomiming thoughtfulness. "But on that note, it could be my sex dungeon that's repelling all the boys from the yard." He takes another bite, chews and swallows, then adds, "You make a good point, though. My track record this year is astoundingly garbage."

Wade nods in agreement, his smile distinctly devilish. "I know you like your solitude and all, but maybe you're putting out your "leave me alone" vibes without meaning to," Wade ponders, sipping his water. "Like that one time in high school you glared into space and some poor girl thought it was at her and started crying."

Mark grunts. "Thank you for bringing that up for the millionth time. No, I haven't been glaring into space. I've been perfectly amiable. They've all just... decided to do other things." Okay, so maybe that's not entirely true. Mark has caught himself more than once being reticent while on a date. He can't help it. People are just... false. Especially when they're trying to impress you.

"Right," Wade drawls. "You lying fuckin' liar. But hey, if you pulled your Igor face then that likely means you didn't hold much of a torch for them in the first place."

"Do not call it my Igor face," Mark groans, shoving Wade's shoulder hard. "God damn it, Wade. Are you trying to get me to fire you?"

Wade wiggles his eyebrows outrageously, then stuffs the rest of his sandwich into his mouth.

"Classy," Mark comments, and then does the same. After he finishes chewing he asks, "Any news on the listing for the spare room?" He asks the same question every day.

"Not a thing," says Wade, standing. "But I'll keep putting it out there. Eventually someone will bite, even if it's just a shithead college student."

"There's that shining optimism of yours," Mark laughs, and Wade grins.

After lunch Mark does a browse of the part-timers' sections, picking the ripened fruits and vegetables that they missed. He loads his Gator's flatbed with flat boxes full of produce and drives back around the edge of the fields to the side road, which leads all the way back to the house. On his way, Mark spots the small pond to the left of the road, recessed a little way back with a partial ceiling of foliage from the surrounding trees. He yearns for a quick dip, but he knows without even fathoming the idea that he doesn't have time. The farmer's market is the next morning, and everything still needs to be washed, sorted, and loaded up into the truck.

The sun is kissing the horizon, casting out red and orange smears to spread along the evening clouds. Mark is coated in mud from forearm to fingertip, aching in every muscle he possesses and nursing a headache, but everything is ready and waiting for the morning. Mark traipses in through the back door, Chica coming to greet him with a wag of her tail. He single-mindedly aims for the sink and scrubs at his arms until he's sure he lost his top layer of skin, but he feels cleaner afterward despite the rest of him still being grimy. 

As he dries his hands, Mark looks out the window over the sink to the farm, his pride and joy. Mark bought it from the previous owner for a steal, basically just the cost of the house. It took over a year for him to get the existing fields to the point where he could grow anything worth keeping, and it took another seven months to renovate the farmhouse and clean a large fraction of the property to be cultivated. Mark worked hard to get where he is, and he earned every inch of what he has. Dates come and go, people come and go, and all their personality flaws with them. But this little spot on planet Earth is all his. He doesn't need anything but this land and the strength to work it.

Once he's taken some painkillers, locked the doors and closed the windows, Mark goes upstairs to shower. He takes his time, sudsing thoroughly and enjoying the hot spray. Afterwards he traverses the house in pyjama pants and a hoodie, his feet bare and his hair damp, to poke around in the fridge for something small to eat. A vacillation of a debate reigns in his mind between healthy or tasty and he eventually decides on a yogurt cup and then, when his hunger isn't sated, a banana. He leans on the counter and gazes out the window while he eats. When he finishes he disposes of the peel and cup in the compost tub and recycling bin, respectively, under the sink.

At his heels Chica gives a soft bark while Mark is washing dishes and trots out of the room to the front door. Mark follows, drying his hands and tossing the hand towel onto the counter. Out the bay window in the living room Mark sees the front driveway occupied by his truck and an unknown vehicle, a four-door blue sedan. He frowns, cautiously eager, as a man he doesn't recognize gets out. Average height, slim build, what looks to be light brown hair. He can't see much else considering the lack of sunlight, but the stranger is apparently remedying that by approaching the front door.

Chica sits by the door, tail thumping happily. She gives one peppy bark after the stranger knocks, then looks over at Mark as if to say, "Well, let him in!"

Mark walks to the door, flipping on the porch light before opening it. On his doorstep stands a young man about his age, just shy of Mark's height by a couple inches, with pale skin and electric blue eyes. His hair is ashy brown, the colour of soil in moonlight, and longer on top than on the sides to give him a flop of wavy bangs that sweeps sideways over his forehead. Thick eyebrows compliment the softened strength of his bone structure and the straightness of his nose. His face is decorated handsomely by a moustache, his rounded chin highlighted by a stretch of beard that borders his mouth with a strip up to his lower lip, petering out into stubble along his jawline to connect with his sideburns. His clothes, while nice, are simple. Long-sleeved shirt, jeans, sneakers. He looks at Mark with wide eyes, his mouth just slightly open.

_Well,_ Mark thinks dumbly as they stare at each other over the threshold. This could be a problem. This random person on his doorstep happens to be very good-looking, and Mark finds himself ridiculously attracted. His gaze snaps down to the man's pink lips when his tongue darts out to wet them. Mark's pulse quickens.

Chica shoves her way past Mark's legs to get to the newcomer, effectively breaking their eye contact. Her butt wiggles with the force of her excitement as she sits and paws at the man's leg, demanding attention. He bends and rubs her behind the ears before standing straight, giving Mark a slightly guilty look.

"Good evenin'," the stranger says with an Irish accent. Mark finds his curiosity piqued immensely. "Um, sorry. I know it's pretty late, but I was just in town and the lady at the diner pointed me in your direction when I asked if anyone had a room for rent. Is yours still available?" His face gets a hopeful light to it, easing Mark's trepidation--and increasing his interest--by half.

Mark forces himself to look away from the man's throat when it bobs with a swallow. He is finding it exceptionally difficult not to gawk, at any part of him. "Yes, it is." He pauses, glancing at his wristwatch to check the time. 10:14--well past the acceptable time for house calls. Mark can't find it in him to care. "How'd you find this place in the dark? There's hardly any signs."

The man shrugs and smiles. "I'm good at seein' things. Plus, the lady from the diner gives good directions." At Mark's inquisitive look, he continues, "Ah, she's short, about late forties, curly red hair. Eh, Gertrude, I think? She said it would be okay if I came by," he adds quietly.

"Oh, Gertrude," Mark says, nodding. "I'm not surprised she sent you, then. She owns the diner," Mark elaborates, "and thoroughly enjoys mothering drifters that come her way. She comes here often for our produce for the diner. She's a good woman." Without his own permission Mark finds his eyes wandering, noting the specifics. The worried tilt to the man's brow, his restless feet, the wrinkled state of his clothes. _He's been on the road for a while,_ Mark concludes, _and without places to stay in between there and here._

"Yes, she was very kind." The stranger shifts his weight a couple times, then straightens suddenly. "Uh, right. I'm Jack." He holds out a hand.

_Good manners so far, Fischbach, keep it up,_ Mark scolds himself. "Mark," he replies, taking his hand. Mark's eyebrows come together over his nose when he feels the contact in his gut, a giddy little pull behind his stomach.

"Um," Jack says hesitantly, and Mark realizes he's doing what Wade calls his "Igor face", where he basically just looks grumpy. 

Quickly Mark lets go and neutralizes his expression, offering a tired smile. "Sorry. Long day," he excuses himself. "Come on in. I'll get Wade, my partner. Well, I say partner, but really he just works for me and lives here. Anyway, he should meet you too, and then we'll both make sure you're not a serial killer."

Jack chuckles, a light sound under his breath, then follows when Mark turns and walks into the house. Chica prances along at Jack's side, eager for more pets. "Well, I know I'm not, but that doesn't ease your mind much, I wager."

In the living room, Mark gestures for Jack to pick a seat. "No," he says wryly, "it doesn't. I'll go get Wade, be right back." He leaves the room with a quick backward glance and hurries upstairs, going all the way down the hall to Wade's bedroom door and knocking. 

_A prospective renter,_ Mark thinks, practically dancing in front of Wade's door. Finally they might fill the empty room with someone and get that extra bit of income to help with the mortgage. The listing for their room has been up for months, since early spring, and Mark had feared that no one would take it. With the size of the house and the split of the mortgage payment and bills for the water and electricity, their asking price for rent was a little steeper than other rental options in the surrounding area. Most college students who came to town for the summer, looking for work or coming back home from school, couldn't afford the cost of living that Mark advertised. 

It helps Mark's enthusiasm for the possibility of a tenant since he's already panting after the newcomer.

After a brief moment Wade opens his door in his pyjamas, looking put-out. "You know, I love you, Mark. Truly and with all my soul." His face sours significantly. "But the next time you interrupt me when I'm having some special alone time, I will kill you."

Mark grimaces. "Let's file this one under the TMI column, because gross." Shaking the image from his mind, Mark continues, "There's someone here about the extra room."

Wade doesn't hide his surprise. "No shit," he says. Then his face drifts into a further shocked expression. "Wait, right now? It's past ten o'clock."

"The Irish have no concept of daylight hours, I guess," Mark muses.

"He's Irish?" Wade parrots, looking intrigued. "Cool." He closes his bedroom door behind him. "Well, let's go see him then. Does he look Dahmer-y?"

"He doesn't even look abnormal," Mark tells him, leading the way back downstairs. "He's actually attractive." Not that Mark's looking. Except he is, he completely is looking at Jack with unmitigated attraction. _Crap._ "Which doesn't bode well for the serial killer bit. They're always the pretty ones."

"You watch too much Criminal Minds," Wade says, laughing. They descend the stairs and make their way down the hall to the living room, where Jack sits fingering the multiple bands on his wrists. When they enter, he jumps to his feet. Beside him on the floor Chica rolls onto her back for a belly rub.

"Wade, Jack," Mark introduces, then immediately sits on the couch, stretching out with a weary sigh.

"Hi," Jack says, smiling at Wade. He sits again, tentatively, at the other end of the couch and Wade makes his way to the armchair by the fireplace and flops into it.

"Hello, Jack. Welcome to our rather underpopulated home," Wade jokes. 

Jack smirks at him. "Thanks. I hope to help with that--if you find me not guilty of serial murder, that is. I know I've got murder-esque eyebrows," Jack laughs, reaching up to touch one eyebrow gingerly, "but rest assured that I'm about as harmful as a box of caterpillars." He gestures with his hands adamantly as he talks, supposedly articulating that he is unworthy of wariness or suspicion. 

Wade rolls his shoulders, relieving some ache. "What brings you here so late?"

"Oh, well I just drove in not too long ago," Jack explains. "I went to the diner in town first for a meal. Gertrude, the woman there asked me if I had a place to stay and I told her I didn't. She mentioned you guys immediately and said I could come straight here to talk to you. She seemed certain that you keep late hours." Jack shrugs, half-smiling. "Good thing she was right."

Wade nods. "And you're Irish. So that's cool."

Scratching his jaw, Jack says, "Yep. Full-blooded Irish, baby." Mark traces his hands' movements with his eyes as Jack lowers them to toy with his sleeve.

"And you need a place to stay," Wade continues. "Will you be working?"

"I can work," Jack hedges. "But I don't have a lot of skills, beyond what I can do with a brush. I'm an artist, specifically a painter."

_No wonder he has such dextrous hands,_ Mark thinks, then mentally slaps himself for being creepy enough to notice how hypnotically dextrous his fingers are. Aloud he notes, "Well, you'll find no better place for peace and quiet. This plot of land is big enough that you could go anywhere within it and be alone. If you wanted," Mark adds hastily, drawing a queer look from Wade. "To be alone, that is."

Jack shrugs and smiles. "I like bein' alone, I guess. But company is good, too. If I'm paintin' then I'd probably be alone, though."

"Well," Wade says, side-eyeing Mark with a lopsided smirk. To Jack he says, "You look fine to me." He looks expectantly at his roommate. "I like him. Mark?"

"Yeah, he's good," Mark says, his tone light. He pretends the way he slides his eyes down Jack's body is platonic and assessing, that he doesn't stare hard at those mesmerizing fingers that absentmindedly fiddle. "Seems like your average Irishman. Not that I even know what that is."

Jack laughs, a raucous and appealing sound. "Well, you guys are easy to please." 

"Small town," Wade tells him. "We trust easy. But, should anything happen to us by your hand, the whole county would be up your ass with a shotgun apiece."

Wincing and then smiling, Jack murmurs with a short chuckle, "All the more reason not to kill you in your sleep and bathe in your organs, then."

"Exactly," Wade says, his mouth splitting into a grin. "So, rent is four hundred. That includes all the bills and everything. We wake up at the asscrack of dawn every day to tend the fields and stuff, and we are almost always filthy, so beware. There will always be food in the fridge at any given moment but you're welcome to buy your own groceries, if you want something we don't have." 

Wade looks over at Mark. "Mark is head honcho. I just eat and work, so if you need anything... don't bother me." Mark gives Wade a withering look. Wade grins wider and continues, "Also, more likely than not we'll get you to help with the farm work when you've got time. Knowing all that, you still interested in sticking around, Jack? Because if you want it, it's yours."

Jack looks between the two farmers, then rubs a hand over his hair. "Absolutely," he says, smiling. He pauses for a long moment, looking down at his lap, then says softly, "Thank you. For the room, and for bein' so nice, considerin' I'm a perfect stranger that knocked on your door at unreasonable o'clock at night."

Mark feels a small clench in his chest as he looks at Jack, with his genuine thankfulness and hesitancy to relax. He studies Jack's shoulders, watches his muscles shift as he reaches down to pet Chica who's still waiting for her belly rub. Jack scratches her tummy and smiles, just slightly, as she starts wagging her tail. 

"Chica likes you," Mark says, to fill the silence and to try and ease the tension he sees in the set of Jack's posture. "And she doesn't usually take to new people very quickly. That's all the convincing I need."

"Plus," Wade adds, "you're the best-looking person, consequently the only person, to apply anyway. Mark thinks that beauty is the note of a murderer but I'm more confident that you're just good eye candy for the hired help around here. Might draw in more pickers."

The Irishman's face turns pink. "Pickers?" Jack asks, confused.

"People who help harvest," Mark tells him. Without remorse he stares, notices how much cuter Jack gets when he blushes. "They pick fruit and vegetables for us so we don't go crazy with heat stroke doing it all ourselves. They're usually young folks in town for the summer."

Jack nods in understanding, his shoulders relaxing. "Eye candy, huh?" He looks down at Chica, wriggling on the floor at his feet. "What do you think, Chica? Am I eye candy?" He scratches her with both hands, puckering his lips as he baby-talks to her. "Huh? Who's a pretty girl?"

Chica looks up at him, her tongue lolling out of her open mouth and her ears flopped back. Her tail slaps against his legs repeatedly.

Mark smiles, watching them. "She's already a fan of you, so she could be biased in her answers." When Jack sits upright again Mark follows the long line of his neck with his eyes, then catches himself before he goes lower. Mark stands suddenly, making Jack and Wade look at him. "Now that that's settled, we should get your things from your car before it gets any darker."

Jack stands too, his hands raised in deflection. "Oh, no, that's alright, I can get them myself." 

"Great, I'm going back to bed," Wade says, getting up and stretching, then leaving the room with a wave. "Night, guys." Moments later his steps can be heard on the stairs.

Mark chuckles after him. Then to Jack he says, "I'll help you unload. C'mon." He moves to the doorway, pausing when he sees Jack staring at him, stationary. "What?"

"Nothin'," Jack says quickly, hurrying to his side. He follows as Mark walks out the front door, down the porch steps and onto the gravel driveway dimly lit by the porch light. Jack unlocks the vehicle and Mark opens the back seat, pulling out a large duffel bag and even larger suitcase, one in each hand, and hip checks the door shut.

"Oh," Jack balks. Mark feels those baby blues on his back as he hauls Jack's cargo effortlessly back to the house. "Um."

Mark looks back when he's at the front door, catching Jack staring with his mouth hanging open. "Pick up the pace, spud-lover. We haven't got all night." He grins when Jack's mouth clamps shut. 

"Spud-lover," Jack spits, taking a backpack from the passenger seat and closing the door. "Is this the sort of treatment I can look forward to?" he asks, shaking his head when Mark's grin gets wider. _"Spud-lover,"_ he says again with distaste, mounting the steps. "That's the best you can come up with? And, you're a fockin' farmer. Like you don't grow damn potatoes."

"It's a term of endearment," Mark teases. Setting down the duffel bag, Mark shuts the door behind Jack and locks it. He picks it up again and leads the way upstairs. "I love me some potatoes, E-I-E-I-O." 

Jack laughs helplessly, his voice carrying through the stairwell. "Are you always this charmin', or is this all for my benefit?"

Mark shrugs but his grin doesn't lessen. "I do like to make a good impression." _I'm flirting,_ Mark thinks suddenly. It's so easy for him to talk to Jack that he's actually flirting. His eyes find Jack's at the top of the stairs, and they stare at each other for a brief moment before Jack turns away. Mark thinks he saw him blush, but he can't be sure. 

At the first door on the right, Mark pauses. "This one is my room, and Wade is down at the end. This one," Mark says, moving on to the door on the left and pushing it open, "is yours. Mine is biggest because it's my house, so suck it. But yours and Wade's rooms are the same size."

"Honestly I'd be happy for just a mattress," Jack says. "Been livin' out of my suitcases for a good two weeks, drivin' around and tryin' to find somewhere to put down a root or two."

As Jack advances into the room, Mark lingers in the doorway with his bags. "I gathered that you're not from around here," Mark agrees, tongue-in-cheek. "But why the perseverance? Or should I say choosiness?" 

"A couple reasons," Jack says, flicking the light switch on and sending the room into bright relief. The bed is up against the far wall, tucked into the corner. A large window sits central on the wall to the right, facing out to the side of the property where the yard gives way to the tree line. Two wooden dressers, one squat and long with two adjacent columns of three drawers and the other tall with four drawers, are opposite the window wall side by side with a circular wall mirror hanging above the shorter of the two. 

"My parents... essentially told me to move out," Jack explains, taking a few steps ahead. "They did it politely, but there was no arguin'. I had nowhere to go, an enormous sense of wanderlust and a cravin' for the freedom of bein' completely on my own. I wanted to get out of my hometown, out of the country. Home seemed borin'. Painfully familiar. My creativity was squashed."

Jack turns back to Mark. "I've been in America for about three weeks now, and almost the entire time I've been lookin' for a place with scenery unlike anythin' I've seen." For a moment Jack's expression is far away. "I want lush, and vibrant, and charismatic. I want complicated and fierce. I want chaos and order." He stops, then starts chewing his lip as he adds, "I paint landscapes mostly, but I've done portraits and surrealism and all kinds of things. I... I left home to get away, to explore, and to look for a muse, and it brought me here."

Completely enchanted by Jack's fervour for his craft, Mark stares. Out of everywhere Jack could've gone, he somehow made his way to Mark's little slice of heaven. What are the odds? Slowly Mark steps into the room, setting Jack's bags down near the bed. "That's pretty amazing," he says, and Jack looks at him with wide eyes. "Seriously. I mean, I love what I do, but there's not a lot of finesse to it. I get up, labour all day, and go to bed. There's not multiple styles of planting, or different ways to pluck a berry. You just do it."

"I think you're sellin' yourself a little short," Jack argues, tossing his backpack onto the bed. "Sure, I went through four years of school for what I do, but there is a lot more to bein' in agriculture than throwin' around a pitchfork and pickin' a couple beans."

Mark takes in the passion in his eyes, the tone of his words. "Well, if you insist," Mark laughs. "You won't be singing the same tune after I get you out in the sun all afternoon." Mark gets a brief mental image of Jack, bare to his waist. His lightly muscled, toned, sweaty body glistening in broad daylight as he chops firewood. Mark's own body responds alarmingly fast, and he stiffens in more ways than one.

_Well fuck,_ Mark thinks weakly. Where the hell had that come from?

"I never said I liked farmin'," Jack says cheekily, oblivious to Mark's abrupt discomfort. "I just know it's not simple." 

Laughing, Mark shakes himself a little and goes to the doorway, beckoning Jack with a hand. "I'll give you a quick tour before I leave you be. Just so you know where everything is tomorrow." When he sees that Jack is following, Mark points down the hall to the door across from Wade's room. "That is the upstairs bathroom. It's got towels and everything you need if you want to shower. The door between you and the bathroom is just a closet. It's basically empty." 

Descending the stairs, Mark says at the bottom, "Despite Wade's... warm disposition that you saw earlier, he does know the meaning of the word "help", so you can ask either of us if you've got a question." Carrying on down the hall Mark points out a door opposite the large kitchen archway. "We keep the linens in there, all the towels and dish cloths and bedsheets." Gesturing farther down the hall, Mark says, "The last door is the main floor bathroom, the one before it is the laundry." Then he walks into the kitchen. "And here we have the heart of the home."

Jack meanders into the room, eyes absorbing everything. He turns in a slow circle, coming to a stop at the sink. "What a lovely house," he says, awed, as he turns back to face Mark. 

"Thank you," Mark says, pleased and flattered at the blatant appreciation on Jack's face. "It took us quite a while to finish the renovations. Over six months."

"I bet," Jack murmurs, tracing the mosaic backsplash with his fingertips. "And I haven't even seen outside yet. At least not in daylight."

"You will tomorrow," Mark promises. He smiles when Jack looks at him. "Wade and I have to go to the market early, to sell this week's haul, but we'll be back by noon probably. We sell out quick." 

Jack nods, his mouth quirking. "Two handsome men selling produce? I bet the housewives clamour to get to you first."

Grinning sheepishly, Mark admits, "The women in town do seem to be... persistently desperate to see our stall." At Jack's amused expression, Mark reddens. "Shut up. Being this gorgeous is a curse."

"Is it contagious?" Jack muses. "I could do with some of that."

Mark chuckles, moving to the doorway. "Doesn't look to me like you need it," he says, leering at Jack while his back is turned as he looks out the window over the sink. 

"Right," Jack laughs, turning and coming to him. "You can stop lavishin' me with compliments," he says mirthfully, "I already agreed to take the room." Maneuvering around Mark in the doorway, he leaves the kitchen. Mark gets a waft of his scent as he passes--his cologne is intoxicating. Mark refrains from inhaling like a drowning man and shuts the kitchen light off.

_You're in trouble, pal,_ Mark tells himself with a dash of fear. Here he goes being sexually attracted to his brand new housemate. It figures that the first person he meets who isn't hard to talk to and he happens to like being around would be someone who, as far as Mark can tell, is possibly interested but shy and deflective, and won't apparently act on any feelings he may have. Besides, Jack just needs a place to stay so he can paint. He didn't come to America looking for a boyfriend, if he's even gay. For all Mark knows, after he finds inspiration Jack could leave and go back to Ireland.

Jack paves the way back upstairs, Mark close behind. The pair pauses at Jack's open bedroom door.

"Thank you again," Jack says earnestly, his fingers fidgeting. He meets Mark's eyes and smiles, his whole face softening when he ducks his head. "I really appreciate this."

"Sure," Mark says, and he reaches out without thinking and rests his hand on Jack's shoulder. Mark's palm tingles warmly. "Glad to have you here." _Stop doing bedroom eyes, stop it right now,_ Mark thinks to himself desperately, when he finds himself staring into Jack's wide blue eyes heatedly.

"I, uh," Jack stammers, his face red. He looks away, taking a half-step back into his room. Mark's hand falls. "Right. Um. Goodnight." He nods, gives a jerky little wave, and closes the door quickly.

For a moment Mark stares at the wood in front of him, his brow low. _Good fucking job, you idiot,_ Mark thinks bitterly, turning around and crossing the hall to his own room. What a way to welcome a new tenant into his home, by undressing them with his eyes and flirting like the horny, unsatisfied bachelor that he is.

Now that he's established how creepy he can be, Mark wonders if Jack will even come within ten feet of him. He frowns at the thought, shuts his door (after he calls for Chica and she wanders in sleepily), removes his hoodie and crawls into bed. He's been without affection for so long that he's jumping at the chance to... well, jump Jack's bones. And that's hardly fair to Jack.

_I've got to tone it down,_ Mark decides. Like way down. Friendship level only. Leave the poor guy alone, let him settle in. Jack didn't ask for Mark in his business, he asked for a room. Just a space of his own to commit himself to his passion.

Sighing, Mark leans back into his pillows and stares out his window to the right of his bed. The moon is out but not in view, casting a luminescent glow through the pane and onto the hardwood floor in a fenestrated pattern. If Mark left Jack alone, if he showed that he wasn't actually super touchy and weird, that would probably encourage Jack to be friendly. Mark just has to actually leave him alone.

Right before he slips into slumber Mark thinks bleakly, _Easier said than done._

 

"Mrs. Collins, hi," Wade greets the old woman before him, to Mark's left. Mark himself is lashing bushels of vegetables together like lightning, sitting on the tailgate of his truck and creating a small mountain of sellable bundles to keep up with the ones disappearing from their stall. "Nice to see you again. How's things?" 

"Just fine, just fine," Mrs. Collins, a peaky woman in her early eighties with a knot of white hair tied atop her head, titters. She leans lightly on a cane in her left hand. "You boys get more handsome every time I see you. Wade, how's your Molly?"

Out of the corner of his eye Mark sees Wade grin wide. "She's great," Wade tells her happily, gathering the foodstuffs that she points at between them. "Still in Cincinnati for school, though. She's taking summer courses."

Mrs. Collins tuts, shaking a bony, liver-spotted finger at him. "You ought to move fast and propose already," she suggests, eyes twinkling. "That girl is a darling. And don't tell me you don't have the ring already."

Wade shrugs, but he's still got that silly grin on his face. Mark knows for a fact that Wade has a ring for Molly sitting in his bedroom. He bought it at the beginning of the summer but has yet to do anything with it. "How right you are, Mrs. Collins," Mark calls, coming over to the stall with his arms laden with produce. "This one hasn't even told me about the ring, but I saw it the day after he bought it."

The old woman giggles, taking the plastic bag with her vegetables and smiling. "You've been found out, young man. Now grow some stones and ask that good girl to marry you."

Mark guffaws, covering his mouth with his hand hastily. "Yes, Wade, listen to Mrs. Collins," he chokes out, smothering laughter at the affronted look on Wade's face as he takes her money.

Mrs. Collins waves cheerily and hobbles away, and Mark claps Wade on the back. "I hate you," Wade tells him conversationally, wrapping an arm around Mark's shoulders and squeezing until the Korean gasps from the pressure. Mark shoves him off with a grin, and Wade levels a calculating look at him. "Oh, what's that?" he queries. "Let's talk about Jack? Sure thing, buddy."

"Subtle," Mark tells him, his face unimpressed. "Let's not talk about Jack, because there's nothing to talk about."

Wade glares at him disbelievingly. "I call severe bullshit, because you were all over him last night. Don't think I didn't see those looks you kept giving him. You were practically eye-fucking him."

Mark strews the bundles of vegetables out along the stall surface, flinching when Wade slugs him in the arm. "Fuck, alright, you badger," Mark grumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yes, I have a crush on our poor new tenant. I also put my foot way far up my own ass before Jack went to bed last night, and so I have decided to take roughly twenty steps back and give him plenty of space."

Wade rolls his eyes heavily. "Oh, very good. Now he'll think his new landlord is a hot-and-cold social disaster." Wade sighs. "Just act normal around him, don't pretend to be anything else."

Mark hunches his shoulders, retreating back to the truck to lean against the lowered tailgate. "Me acting normal--supposedly normal--around him is what got my foot lodged up my rectum. Normal me wants that Irish toffee until I'm sick to my stomach."

"Please never say that again," Wade advises, looking decidedly put-off. "But I get your point. So, just be friendly. Don't do the whole handsy thing you like to do with your dates. Well, the ones you like anyway."

"I am not handsy," Mark argues, offended even as he gets image after mental image of himself, brushing his fingers along an arm, caressing a leg when seated, the occasional (common) tender touching of a face. "I'm just... physically affectionate." He folds his arms petulantly when Wade stares him down. "Stop that. I'm not handsy."

"You're not inappropriately handsy," Wade agrees. "But oh my God, do you ever let those bastards wander when you're infatuated." Wade gestures to Mark's hands, hidden under the muscled girth of his biceps. "Just deny it, I dare you."

Mark looks away, furious and embarrassed. He hoists himself into the truck bed and kneels in the midst of the fruits and veggies. "And just for that, you get to man the booth for the rest of the morning."

Wade scowls at him. "I sense some imperialism going on here," Wade accuses, but Mark ignores him and with a scoff Wade turns back to the stall. 

Once he's sure Wade has his attention snagged by a customer, Mark droops with a sigh. Wade is right, of course. Mark is a basket case of idle touching when he's attracted to someone. He knows it, he knows Wade knows it, and he's sure that, given enough time and examples, Jack will know it too.

When they've run out of produce to sell Wade and Mark clean up the area around the booth, sweeping up errant leaves and stems, wiping down the surfaces with wet rags and disposing of any excess fruits or vegetables that were damaged beyond being saleable. They pile into the truck, the cash box secure in Wade's lap as he recounts their total.

"So what exactly do you plan on doing with Jack, then?" Wade wonders as Mark turns onto the gravel road that, at its end, holds their home.

"Keep my hands to myself and pray," Mark says ruefully. "He needs a place to stay, and I'm not about to be the asshole that ruins his stability here. He's got goals of his own to fulfill."

Wade raises his eyebrows. "Then that means you're not going to go after him, once he does settle in?"

Mark stiffens. "I never said that," he rushes out, making Wade smirk. Mark frowns. "Stop meddling, I can handle this. I can," he says firmly, when Wade looks at him speculatively. "Once Jack is comfortable, then maybe I'll... do something. But until then I'm Switzerland."

"Good luck with that," Wade says dryly, earning a shoulder slap from his roommate. "Ow! Alright, fine, I wish you horrible luck and hope you fondle him to death."

Mark takes the turn onto the long driveway, depositing them in front of the house. Parking next to Jack's car Mark swallows his nerves as he scans the yard for any sign of the Irishman. He exits the truck, stepping down and shutting the door, and says to Wade across the hood, "Go ahead and take the cash to my bedroom, I'll lock it up later." Wade nods and disappears into the house. 

More hesitantly Mark makes his way around the house to the backyard, whistling loudly. He waits, and then Chica comes running from the other side of the house, tail whipping back and forth and maw agape in a smile. Chica flops down at his feet and he kneels, aggressively rubbing her belly.

"Who's my Chica-pica-pica?" Mark coos, digging his fingers in and laughing when Chica growls happily and licks his hands. "Hey, Chica? Who's my girl? Chica-pica-poo." He rubs behind her ears and then stands, watching as she rolls onto her feet and bolts away, back the way she came. Intrigued, Mark follows her to the south side of the house and turns the corner. He freezes.

Jack is standing there in the grass, dressed in well-worn jeans and a pale green paint-splattered t-shirt with a small collapsable table and an easel erected before him. His hands are full, the right with a narrow-bristled brush and the left with a palette smeared with various colours of paint. On the table is an assortment of supplies--a cup full of brushes, paint tubes and jars, several other items that look to Mark like they belong to a geologist rather than an artist. The easel in front of Jack has a medium-sized canvas that's been well-versed in his talent.

When Chica runs by, barking excitedly, Jack looks up from his painting and sees Mark. Right away his face colours and he looks away. Resigned, Mark approaches him, stopping several feet shy of his personal bubble. 

"Hey," Mark greets, his hands stuffed into his pockets to prevent stupidity. "Wade and I just got back from the market."

"I know, I heard you come up the drive," Jack says, then smiles. "Well, Chica did anyway." He's turned back to his painting, using the brush to add a blotch of brown-green colour to what Mark notices is a grove of trees. He glances up to the opposing forest, far enough away to be an effective firebreak from the house, and back to the painting. The two are uncannily similar down to the tiny details, Mark notes, impressed. "She's a good dog. She even lets me know when there's coyotes nearby."

Mark quirks an eyebrow. "Did you come across any? Coyotes," he adds. 

Shaking his head, Jack says, "Nah. She barked a few times and I saw two of them run off a ways away." Chica lies down in the grass by Jack, huffing out a sigh and watching the two humans. "She's been followin' me around all day and I still can't put my thumb on her. She's lazy, but energetic."

"I stopped trying to define her years ago," Mark says, a small smile creeping over his lips. He watches Jack make a few small strokes with his brush. "That's really good," Mark murmurs, inching closer and gesturing to Jack's painting. "You've got some skill with that junk."

Jack shrugs, smiling. "I am aware," he muses, "but thank you." He pauses, obviously wanting to say something else, and Mark waits anxiously. "How did the market go?" Jack finally asks, looking at him.

"Great," Mark tells him. "Everything sold, and in record time." Jack's neck is littered with little spots of colour in the shape of fingertips, as are his forearms and hands. Mark sees a trail of aubergine paint that licks its way down Jack's wrist, then tries to forget he saw it. "You should come with us next time," Mark hears himself say. "You could sell your paintings."

"Really?" Jack says, surprised. "That would be amazin'. Not that many people here would likely buy my things, though."

"You underestimate how much small communities love visitors," Mark laughs. "If you involve yourself with us there will no doubt be a crowd of people ready to start playing matchmaker and find you a house of your own."

Jack's eyebrows dart upwards. "Well, by the sound of things I'll be married and housebound by next year," he chuckles. A little awkwardly he adds, "Gertrude had the forwardness to mention that you've got the empty space for me because you're still single and without a family."

Mark rubs his neck, sighing. "Yeah. She means well, I guess. Gertrude likes trying to set me up with anyone under the sun. But she's known me for years, since I was a kid, and as such knows my track record with dating. It's shit," Mark says when Jack looks curious, then laughs softly when Jack's expression turns alarmed and then sheepish. "Don't worry, it's okay. I'm aware of my shortcomings."

Jack frowns. "I hardly think your datin' life is shit because of your shortcomin's. You don't strike me as a particularly flawed person." Jack looks over his shoulder at Mark, stirring something in Mark's chest when those oceanic eyes roam down his body. "And it's definitely not a lack of physical appeal."

"Oh?" Mark chuckles, low and sensual. _Stop it,_ he tells himself, but Jack is still looking at him, his eyes lingering on Mark's mouth. "So does that mean you find me attractive?" Mark murmurs, stepping closer. If he reached out he could touch Jack's arm.

Jack flushes, quickly turning back to his painting. "I meant that in--in an objective sort of way," he blurts, his shoulders hunched defensively. "I'm not lookin' for anythin'. With anyone, at all. Especially y--" He stops himself, mouth pressed firmly shut.

_Especially me,_ Mark finishes in his head, dread flooding his chest. Well, you can't get more blunt than that. He takes the rejection for what it is, and retreats a few steps. "Of course," he says easily, but he studies the way Jack stands, so rigid. Skittish. Uncomfortable to the laces on his shoes. Mark resists the urge to sigh, and nods instead. "Then I guess I'll leave you to it. I, ah, wouldn't want to get in your way."

"Oh, no, that's not--" Jack starts, but Mark is already walking away. He rounds the corner of the house and climbs the porch steps two at a time, nearly slamming his way into the kitchen through the back door. Mark goes directly to the fridge and grabs a Corona from the bottom crisper, twisting the cap off and taking a long swig from the bottle. He parks himself in a chair at the table and glares sombrely down at the wood.

Wade finds him there some time later, four Coronas deep and counting. "Well, look at you, Igor. How's the strategy going with your sexy foreigner?"

"Shut the fuck up," Mark grouses, head in his hands.

"That good, huh," Wade laughs. He leans on the back of a dining chair. "I know it sucks, buddy, but we've still got work to do and Jack isn't a good enough reason for you to lay about and drink. So, let's go."

Wearily, and with a sway, Mark stands. "Should've known better," he murmurs. "Just 'cause he's from Ireland doesn't mean he's gonna be immune to my repulsive tendencies."

"Okay, Mr. Let's Feel Sorry For Myself," Wade begins tiredly, "stop having a mini depression because someone you met _yesterday_ doesn't like you that much."

Mark pouts. "When you say it like that it sounds stupid."

"You're being stupid," Wade informs him. "Come on, drunky. We've got things to do."

Wade babysits him for the afternoon, making sure he doesn't fall over headfirst into a ditch or impale himself on a trowel. Being sloshed, Mark isn't allowed to drive the Gator and he discovers getting grumpy about it doesn't make him feel any better. They ride the fields, do some picking and weeding and find odd jobs to occupy themselves so Mark can't genuinely fuck up anything important. Mark, drunk but still a farmer, manages to make it through the rest of the day through sheer perseverance, lots of water, and a large reliance on muscle memory.

When their daylight starts to fade Wade parks the Gator in the shed, about thirty-five yards from the house, and pockets the keys. He pulls the garage door shut with Mark's help and they walk together back to the house. Crickets chime as they pass through the tall grass, the sun hanging low in the cloudy sky.

At the porch, Wade stops him with a hand on his arm. "I know you're pissed because Jack isn't responding, but try to be an adult, alright? No more of this getting hammered in the middle of a work day."

Mark shrugs, expressionless. Over the course of his stupor, and his sobering, Mark came to the reasonable conclusion that pursuing Jack may not be the thing to do, now or later. Jack doesn't seem to want much to do with him besides a tenant-landlord relationship. Mark bitterly accepts the fact that not everyone that he likes will inherently like him back. Not that he didn't know that before, but he's getting pretty tired of having it reinforced.

"No more drunky Mark," Mark mutters, then walks through the door and into the kitchen. He stops dead. Jack is sitting at the table, doing something on the smartphone in his hands with earbuds in his ears. 

At his and Wade's arrival, Jack looks up. Upon seeing Mark he bites his lip and tugs out his earbuds, glancing away and then back. "Hi," Jack says.

"Hi," Mark returns neutrally, avoiding eye contact. He pivots, addressing Wade, "We need to start clearing that pasture tomorrow after we mend that fence, first thing, so be ready to go by five." Wade nods, moving towards the fridge and giving a thumbs-up.

Facing Jack, Mark says quietly, "I'm going to bed. Goodnight." 

Mark hurries from the room, jogging up the stairs and shutting himself behind the bathroom door. He showers, towels his hair semi-dry and trims his beard. Brushing his teeth last, Mark spends an inordinate amount of time staring in the mirror. He pokes at his nose, too big, and his chin, too wide. His eyes are too slim, and his face is too long. Mark takes a step back from the mirror, then flexes his arms. He studies himself, his admittedly impressive body and his aesthetically appealing face, for a long time but finds nothing worth keeping.

_Snap out of it,_ he orders himself as he walks to his bedroom, a towel around his waist. But he can't. A small thundercloud sits on his shoulders, sucking the goodness out of him and leaving him feeling hollow and useless. Mark pushes his door open and jerks to a halt, his hand clutching his towel tightly.

Jack is sitting on his bed, Chica laying behind him. Jack's eyes are downcast, and he looks worried and small as he fidgets. His head lifts and his eyes find Mark in the doorway. Immediately he blushes a deep red and gets to his feet.

"Ah, shit, I did not think this through," he frets, his eyes wandering all over Mark. He catches himself and looks away, staring at the wall. "I am so sorry, I didn't think--"

Mark ignores the butterflies he gets from that look. "It's fine," he says tonelessly, advancing into his room and leaving the door open. "But I'd like to change and go to sleep. So, if you don't mind." He stands at his dresser, not looking at Jack, and retrieves a pair of boxer briefs and a t-shirt.

"Um," is Jack's reply, and Mark turns. Jack still isn't looking at him. "I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry for what I said this afternoon. It was a rude thing to say."

"You're not required to like me," Mark says after a moment. Considering Jack isn't even watching, Mark has no qualms about dropping his towel and slipping his underwear on. By the muffled sound that comes from Jack, he thinks his tenant noticed. "I'm sorry for... getting too friendly. It won't happen again." He pulls on his shirt and waits, looking at Jack. "I'll keep my distance." _Wouldn't want to inflict my company on you,_ Mark adds bitterly to himself.

"Oh, fock. That's not what I meant when I said... what I said," Jack says apologetically, lifting his head and meeting Mark's eyes. "I just don't date. Anymore. I didn't mean to offend you." Big blue eyes bore into Mark, tender and pleading. The sight wicks away his negativity like a sponge.

But still Mark sees his unease, the way his shoulders won't relax, the slightly hunted expression on his face. To put it plainly, Jack just isn't comfortable in his presence. "I understand," he says. "I'll be nothing but professional." Mark looks pointedly at his open door. "I'd really like to go to bed now."

Jack nods, shuffling to the doorway. He pauses under the frame, looking back. "No hard feelin's, right?" he asks, looking wary.

Shaking his head Mark says, "No hard feelings." _Except one specific hard feeling,_ Mark thinks, amused. "Good night."

"G'night," Jack murmurs, then disappears. 

Mark shuts the door after him, pressing his forehead to the wood. There, he did it. Mark successfully kept his hands to himself, discussed the problem like an adult, and everything is sorted out. Jack is out of his reach permanently, and they're on good terms. Fantastic.

With a heavy sigh, Mark straightens. He shuts off his light and navigates to his bed in the pitch darkness of the room. At his bedside he climbs in and sets the alarm on his phone for 4:30, then lies back and stares through the black.

Mark will admit, his pride is more than a little beat up, but it's not like it's Jack's fault for not wanting anything to do with him. He's perfectly entitled to ignoring Mark sexually and romantically, despite Mark's feelings. He owes Mark nothing, least of all attention. Which is the first of many things that Mark wants from him.

_You're being a child,_ Mark tells himself as he rolls onto his side. He should just accept Jack as an acquaintance and call it a night instead of dwelling on how much Jack doesn't like him. Frowning, Mark rubs a hand over his eyes. But he's never wanted anyone like he wants Jack. The second he saw the man Mark was hooked. He can't get his new tenant out of his mind, like a burr on his brain. And Mark didn't imagine the way Jack looked at him, right? When Jack blushed, when Mark caught him staring? Just now, Jack practically eye-fucked Mark when he saw him in just a towel. Didn't he? Or was Mark projecting onto Jack because that's what he wants to see?

_Stop making shit up,_ he thinks cruelly, flopping onto his stomach and stuffing his face into the pillow. Jack doesn't care in the slightest. In fact, he basically spelled it out for Mark. Jack is one hundred percent not interested in whatever it is that dating could give him. Not just dating anyone, though. Specifically Mark. Especially Mark. Going after Jack at this point is emotional suicide. Mark needs to wash his hands of this infatuation, and fast. 

With that thought running through his head Mark shuts his eyes and wishes for rest, but despite his conviction, he doesn't sleep for hours.

 

Mark lives on coffee the next day. Wade notices sometime around ten a.m. when Mark has his third cup during a break in their morning after finishing some grass-slashing, weeding, and tilling in an untouched pasture. The two of them are more dirt than man. 

Wade tucks his hands into his pockets, studying his best friend critically across the kitchen. "Someone didn't sleep very well, I would guess."

"You would be fucking spot on," Mark replies, his mood dour. He replaces the carafe to the coffee machine and drinks his coffee, leaving the kitchen out the back door and draining half his travel mug before they're even off the porch. Heading for the utility shed they walk side by side through the grass. "I didn't get to sleep until the early morning."

"Considering how much work you knew we had today, that wasn't very smart," Wade muses. He gets the door and Mark strides into the shed first. Mark sets his mug on the ground and hefts the garage door up so they can take out the Gators. 

"I am aware," Mark says wryly, the corner of his mouth twitching. Loading three-quarter inch planks of wood and an excess of nails and tools onto the attached flatbed of his Gator (Wade is also doing the same), Mark continues, "I... had a visit from our tenant last night. He was convinced he had said something inexcusably rude to me and wanted to apologize. It was hard to calm down afterwards."

Wade lifts his eyebrows, tossing Mark a set of keys and climbing into one of the three farming utility vehicles. "And did he? Say something rude?"

Mark shrugs. "He insinuated very heavily, when I came on to him yesterday after the market, that he wanted less to do with me than the dirt on my boots. The way he worded it was admittedly rude, but it got the point across." He gets into a Gator, coffee in hand, and turns the ignition. It purrs to life beneath him.

When Mark guns the engine and drives out of the shed, Wade is close behind. They move briskly along the road, passing the length of the fields on either side before coming to the end of the fields and opening onto the back expanse of the property, in all of its untapped glorious potential. The back fence needs repairing, badly, before they can begin the process of transforming the neighbouring grassy, uneven terrain into acceptable farmland. 

Wade climbs out of the Gator and levels a stern look at Mark. "And you let him feed you that bull? You did, didn't you," Wade sighs, rubbing his forehead wearily.

Scowling, Mark gets out and moves to the flatbed, adhering a tool belt around his hips and filling one pocket with nails from the large bag of them on the flatbed. He slips a hammer into a slot on his right side and grabs a stack of lumber. "He isn't interested, Wade. We both read him wrong."

"You are so gullible," Wade grunts, his arms full of planks. He and Mark make their way to what's left of the weathered fence. "If Jack isn't attracted to you and has no feelings for you, then I'll eat my goddamn hat." He points drastically to the uninteresting grey baseball cap on his head. Mark gives him a dull look. "I'm that sure."

"Then get to masticating," Mark says, waving his hand at Wade lazily as he turns to the fence. "Because if you saw the look on his face when he told me that, you wouldn't think he cared either. He looked like he'd rather jump in an active volcano than have to look at me, be near me."

Wade doesn't seem to have anything to say to that, so the conversation dies out. Together they pull off the old planks that are rotted and beyond repair, section by section, and replace them with new ones. They get partway down the fence southward, nearly to the corner where the tree line sits not far off, before they stop for rest and food.

Back at the house Mark makes BLT sandwiches. He and Wade are in no immediate rush to return to fence mending, so Mark puts a little extra effort into the sandwiches, making a double decker version as opposed to a single. Wade's eyes widen with hunger when Mark sets it in front of him.

"You'll make a good wife, Mark," Wade says, then takes enormous bites until his mouth is full to overflowing. He chews and swallows, then adds, "I'll vouch for you."

Mark quirks an eyebrow at him, smiling. "Of the two of us, who is actually closer to being married here?"

Wade gives him a scathing look. "Don't pressure me, damn it. I'll ask her when the time is right."

"Pussy," Mark coughs loudly, a fisted hand at his mouth. Fake-coughing aggressively to smother the words, Mark says, "No motherfuckin' balls."

Wade reaches and smacks the side of Mark's face with his left hand, his right cradling the double decker BLT with a death grip. "See if I get you anything for your birthday, you hypocrite," Wade glowers at him.

Mark takes a bite of his sandwich and mostly finishes his mouthful before asking, "The hell am I a hypocrite for? I'm not proposing to anyone."

Rolling his eyes, Wade snarks, "Think really hard, He Who Pines After Iri--" Abruptly he cuts short, stuffing food into his face with a brief shocked glance over Mark's shoulder.

As Mark opens his mouth to wonder what his problem is, Jack enters Mark's field of vision from the hall behind him and pauses at the end of the table. His hair darkened with wetness, Jack is wearing a white tank top under an unbuttoned casual shirt and pale blue shorts with penguins on them. Mark thinks mildly, _He is so cute and I am so fucked,_ when Jack automatically looks to him first.

"I'm over paintin' trees for the next while," he tells the men at the table with a grin, but his eyes don't even drift slightly from Mark's. "Think you can use a pasty white guy like me outside for a couple hours?"

_Oh, the ways I could use you,_ Mark growls internally. But he forces that down, way down, and says politely, "Yeah, absolutely. Still got plenty of fence to fix." Mark gestures across the kitchen to where a third, single-layered sandwich lays on the counter, waiting for either of the farmers to claim it. "You're welcome to the scraps of our engorgement, as well."

"Look how you spoil me," Jack laughs, finally breaking eye contact and moving around the table to the counter. Mark breathes a small sigh of relief and ignores the look Wade sends him. 

The three of them eat in silence, and once Jack has finished--Wade and Mark had a good head start--Wade leads the way back outside, towards the shed and the waiting Gators with the keys still in the ignitions. Mark and Wade begin depositing more lumber onto the nearly-depleted piles and removing the sizeable stack of old, rotted boards in the flatbeds, attached to the vehicles. Jack stands some ten feet away, looking lost.

Mark frowns at that look. "Go ahead and hop in," he suggests, drawing Jack's gaze to him. "We've got this covered."

"But not in mine," Wade adds, and Mark whips his head around to glare heavily at him. Grinning, Wade says to Jack, "I need the leg room. Nothing personal."

It's a valid excuse considering Wade is well over six feet with legs for days, but it still burns Mark to see him trying to shove Jack and him together. Jack, however, sees nothing wrong with the request--or if he does he keeps it to himself--and climbs into the passenger side of Mark's Gator. 

Sighing, Mark resists the urge to lob the crowbar to his immediate left at the tall, thick-bearded asshole beside him. But he supposes he still enjoys throwing the dirtiest looks he can muster at him as they rush to fill their flatbeds.

Mark finishes first so on his way to his seat he pauses. He gives Wade a shit-eating grin and lifts his arms to flex them on either side of his head. Wade glowers at him, enviously studying Mark's display of strength. "Show-off," Wade gripes, waving him off. "Get lost, Tarzan. Just because genetics hit you with a really attractive sack of bricks, you think you get to flaunt it around?"

Snagging the bottom hem of his t-shirt Mark draws it up to to his armpits to bare most of his torso, the lower half of which is nicely defined into a six-pack. He flexes that too, doubling its impressiveness, and levels a smug look at Wade. "Sorry, couldn't hear you over the sound of how fucking gorgeous I am."

There's a choking sound behind him, and Mark turns to see Jack sitting in the front seat covering his face with both hands and facing away from him. His ears are a blazing, cherry red. Sheepish, Mark leaves Wade and sits behind the steering wheel. He turns the key, shifts it into drive and pulls out of the shed.

"That wasn't very modest of me, was it?" he asks Jack after a minute, once they're well on their way to the back fence line.

Jack glances at him, still red and now surprised. "I doubt I'd be much better, lookin' like you do," he replies, shrugging. He looks away, seemingly unable to hold Mark's eyes any longer than that.

Mark hears the compliment but doesn't believe the sincerity of its author. "Still doesn't make it that acceptable," Mark laughs. He makes himself look away from Jack's profile and back to the road. "I'm a nice person, I promise. I just like to needle Wade."

"He does seem fun to provoke," Jack agrees with a half-smile. He shakes his drying bangs from his face, but the wind from their speed just negates him by continuing to toss his hair to and fro. Looking around them Jack comments, "I had no idea your property was this big."

"Yeah, over twenty acres," Mark informs him. "A decent bit of it is forest, and field space we haven't yet gotten around to converting into plantable soil. But it's a nice chunk of land. It's treating me well."

"Because you treat it well," Jack surmises. Mark nods. "How long have you had it?"

Mark thinks for a moment before replying, "Coming up on three years, this fall."

Jack doesn't hide his shock. "Only three years? You're doin' ridiculously well for so little time."

"I've been a farmhand in the area for a long time before I had my own place, since I was a teenager," Mark tells him. "And I was a foreman for an older gentleman and his wife at their farm for over two years. Everyone here knows me, knows how I do things. These people take kindly to good quality, family values, and handsome farmers." He chuckles. "Not that I fill all those criteria."

Jack smiles at him, opens his mouth to say something when he suddenly lets out a shrieking yell and nearly vaults out of his seat in his haste to point out something on Mark's left. Mark jerks, his foot pushing onto the brakes and the Gator coming to a stop as he looks and sees the small pond just through the trees with its roof of leaves, basking happily in the midday sunbeams. 

"Oh, I wish I brought my sketchbook," Jack wails, sitting back down morosely. 

"You'll have time to come back after we let you loose," Mark promises, drinking in Jack's enraptured expression as he stares at the pond. "I'll bring you back to the house for supper, and then I'll give you a lift here after."

"Really? You're sure?" Jack persists, looking as hopeful as if Mark just guaranteed to catch him a star in the sky.

"Really," Mark says, smiling gently. He lets himself watch Jack when he grins wide and bounces excitedly in his seat, turning his eyes back to the pond behind Mark. But before Jack can see him staring, Mark accelerates and moves them along. "As repayment for helping us out. I know we said we would rope you into it anyway, but it's nice of you to offer."

"My parents raised a decent man, I'll admit," Jack says with a chuckle. "But I actually needed a break from paintin', and I don't mind puttin' in a bit of backbreakin' work here and there."

It occurs to Mark suddenly, like a slap in the face, that he is encouraging Jack to get sweaty and flushed, physically exerted and even--Jesus Christ--out of breath, panting, in his presence. Mark swallows, his overactive imagination assaulting him. He did not think this through.

They come up on the back fence shortly and Mark stops near the spot where he and Wade began that morning, where newly replaced boards extend in one direction and decrepit, old fence stretches in the other.

Jack gets out as Mark does, peering down the line towards the south. "Damn. You guys must have work ethic like Egyptian slaves." 

Mark guffaws loudly. "Something like that, yeah. Nothing gets done unless we do it, so the quicker it's finished, the less work is ahead of us."

"A good way to look at things," Jack says, joining Mark as he comes around the Gator to the flatbed. "Now, what on Earth are you gettin' me to do?"

Mark hands him a tool belt, a hammer and, when he's secured both onto his person, a large handful of nails. "Put those in the big side pocket, here." Mark taps it on Jack's belt. "We'll get everyone working on the same section so this will go fast. We can start without Wade, and he'll jump in when he gets here."

Mark expects he'll do the majority of the work, but considering this is what he does for a living, he's not surprised or bothered by it. He starts yanking one of the old boards off by himself, Jack standing at his shoulder looking wary.

"You're sure you don't want me to help?" he hazards, then leaps back when Mark, with a full body heave, rips the plank off the fence posts. "Never mind."

Mark grins over his shoulder at him, flexing a bicep and then kissing it. "These babies are self-sufficient. They don't need no man."

Jack laughs, stepping aside as Mark tosses the plank towards the Gators, the first of the pile. Mark follows his throw, moving to the flatbed to grab a few planks and bringing them to the fence. He holds the board in place and instructs Jack to begin nailing it into the post, which he does with limited success.

"For the love of--I have an artist's soul, not a carpenter's, fock's sake," Jack growls, when he misses the nail three times in a row. "I am not cut out for fence buildin', let's be clear about this right now."

Frowning, Mark says, "Hold it closer to the bottom, you'll get more swing." When Jack barely moves his hand down the grip of his hammer, Mark sighs. "Here, like this." He pulls his own hammer off his tool belt and fishes out a nail one-handed, placing it on the wood and driving it quickly through to the post with four sharp strikes. "See? Easy."

"The hell am I even here for," Jack mutters, scowling and adjusting his hand to copy Mark's. He swings and, miraculously, hits the nail. However, it's now bent sideways into the plank. Jack stares at it, his eyes cloudy with rage. "Are you serious."

"That's fine," Mark assures him, biting his lip to keep from smiling. "We can just get another one in. We have nails to spare, so go crazy. It's not a fence beauty contest."

"A good thing, that," Jack says, rubbing a hand over his hair. "Because this monstrosity I'm creatin' would lose that contest."

The sound of a motor cuts into their conversation and they turn to see Wade coming down the road in his Gator. He parks alongside Mark's and gets out. "Hey, sorry," he calls. "Molly phoned me as I was on my way over."

"No worries," Mark shrugs. "Jack's just getting the hang of things."

Wade nods, loading his arms with lumber and bringing it to the fence, bending and depositing it onto the ground in a heap. "Looks good. Let's keep going."

The sun is drooping in the sky behind them when Jack finally gasps, "I quit, just kill me," and flops onto the ground in a puddle. Amused, Wade and Mark finish the section of fence they're at with two more wooden boards while Jack breathes heavily in the grass.

"I am not made for hard labour," Jack says, sitting up when Mark and Wade are done. "I rescind any further offers to help you cretins. How do you live in this misery? I'm starving, sticky and sore." With a groan Jack gets to his feet, accepting the helping hand that Mark holds out.

Mark's hand tingles distractingly. He ignores it, instead saying, "You get used to it after a while." He spots the drops of sweat on Jack's forehead, the exhaustion in his eyes. Mark watches his fingers dance along his forearm in an errant stroke and sees the disarray of his hair, and all Mark thinks is, _I can't stop._ He's completely enamoured with the man, and Mark can't stop looking at him. 

Jack stretches his arms over his head, exposing the perspiration-soaked underarms of his shirt and making Mark's mouth water when his tank top scoots up his stomach to reveal a couple inches of hairy abdomen. Mark glues his eyes to Jack's body, consuming him visually. His toned arms reaching to the sky. The curve of his chest as his back bows. Those pinks lips tilted in a small smile despite the dirt smears on his cheeks and sweat on his brow. How his shorts, which could pass for skimpy swim trunks or a pair of boxers, let show the creamy expanse of his legs, hair-covered and bony-kneed. The way his hands twitch when he looks down and sees Mark watching him.

_Well, at least I'm not hard,_ Mark thinks wryly as he looks away. 

With that pleasant thought in mind, Mark starts gathering the old boards and piling them back onto the flatbeds. Wade and Jack join him, and it's short work. 

As they pass the pond on the way back, Jack says somewhat uncomfortably, tiredly, "And here I thought I would have the energy to draw after that."

Mark smiles at him, having to stop himself from letting his eyes linger while he drives. "You're off the hook, indefinitely. Help us out on a volunteer basis. You're not here to work all day, after all."

"If it'll bump my rent down, I'll do anythin'," Jack laughs. Mark marvels at him, his mouth open with mirth, hair flying in the wind and the warm sunshine caressing his pale skin.

"Anything, you say?" Mark muses, keeping his tone light and distinctly avoiding flirtation. "Don't let Wade hear you say that. The man's an extortionist."

"Like I even talk to Wade," Jack says, his mouth tight at the corners. Quickly he adds with a wary glance, "Not that I don't like Wade. Wade is great."

Mark chews his bottom lip. "Jack," he begins, keeping his eyes ahead, "if this isn't working then it's okay. You can tell me if you don't want to stay here. We'll help you find somewhere else."

"What?" Jack asks and turns to him, alarmed. "Are you kickin' me out?"

"No!" Mark hurries to tell him. He glances over and sees Jack peering at him with a defeated expression. "I'm not kicking you out. I swear. But... I've noticed how you treat me, how you act when I'm around. It's very obvious that you're not at all comfortable with me."

Jack ducks his head, grimacing. "Shit." He drags a hand down his face and sighs hard. "I'm sorry, I haven't been meanin' to act like that."

Mark can't stop himself from correcting, "I think you mean, you hadn't meant to let me see it." He can't keep the bitter hurt out of his voice, either. "Although you definitely didn't leave room for interpretation when we talked about it."

"I'm a bastard, I know," Jack groans. Mark keeps his eyes on the road, for his sanity. "I seriously mean it when I say it's nothin' personal, though. I don't hate you, or Wade, at all. At all," Jack emphasizes when Mark stares ahead, saying nothing. "I'm so fockin' grateful to you both. But I don't... date, and you are sex on legs--Lord above are you fockin' attractive--and it keeps messin' with me monumentally whenever you're close." 

Mark blinks, noticing belatedly that they're approaching the house and shed. He parks the Gator inside the open garage door and shuts the ignition off, then turns incredulously to Jack. The Irishman is stiff in his seat, uncomfortable and unsure. "Let me see if I've got this right," Mark says slowly. "You don't want to see anyone, or date in the slightest. But you're, and I'm quoting you here, attracted to me and think I'm sex on legs--" Jack flushes bright red, his brow furrowed and his mouth moued, "--but because of the first item on the docket, it doesn't matter how sex-on-legs I am, because you don't date." Mark studies him, the irritated twitching of his fingers in his lap, the hunch of his shoulders. "And for whatever reason, that upsets you, more than you think it apparently should."

"Ah, Christ, forget I said anythin'," Jack mumbles. He gets out of the vehicle and starts striding purposefully to the house, Mark immediately leaping off his seat and coming after him. Chica, hearing their approach, comes bounding from the far side of the house and up to Jack, dancing on her hind legs for his attention. When Jack halts, assailed by Chica's neediness, Mark rushes to his side and clamps a hand on his wrist. 

"Okay, so it's an odd situation," Mark relents, shoving aside his own discomfort to address the withdrawn look on Jack's face. "But that's fine, I'm still going to stick by my original statement. I'm nothing but professional to you. One hundred percent platonic."

Jack eyes him, tugging gingerly on his arm to test Mark's grip. In response Mark loosens his fingers, and Jack pulls free. He stays where he is. "Thank you," Jack murmurs. "For not bein' angry about how stupidly I'm handlin' this."

Mark sighs, taking several steps back. "It's nothing. But, you'll have to forgive me if I don't stop myself right away when I'm watching you. It's hard to keep my eyes off of you." When Jack still looks uneasy, Mark adds softly, "I'll keep my distance, like I said."

"On your own property I'm makin' you tiptoe around me," Jack snaps, seemingly to himself, "when I can't even explain--" His mouth shuts, lips tightly mashed together.

_He's running from something,_ Mark determines. _But he can't even say what it is._ "Are you really here for inspiration, Jack? Or are you hiding from something? Someone?" Jack flinches, just slightly, and Mark frowns at the way his whole expression closes off. "Never mind, you don't need to answer me." Turning to the house, Mark adds, "I'm going to start supper." Without looking back he makes for the porch, entering the kitchen through the back door and momentarily pausing once inside.

Jack is definitely running from something or someone, and Mark doesn't have a hot clue what or who that could be. And Jack's not about to share, either, if his reluctance is anything to go by. Least of all will he be sharing with or confiding in Mark.

_So he's attracted to me, but not enough to care,_ Mark thinks drolly. Excellent. This leaves him exactly where he was before, but now with more basic designs. Jack is alone. Jack is afraid of whatever he left behind. Jack is not going to date Mark, despite being interested. 

Mark is insanely curious about his housemate, and it may be driving him to alcoholism. He heads for the fridge, pilfering an amber bottle from the crisper before shutting it. He cracks the beer open barehanded and tips his head back, letting the liquid soothe his wounded ego and beleaguered hopefulness.

Wade and Jack enter the kitchen while Mark is adding the teriyaki sauce to the stir fry in the pan before him. Mark glances over his shoulder but doesn't bother turning, scooping his beer off the counter and taking another gulp.

"Supper should be done in about five," Mark tells them, and Wade appears at his side, inhaling deeply.

"Smells good, honey," Wade praises, giving Mark's butt a pat as he walks behind him to the fridge. Getting his own beer--and handing a second to Jack, who accepts it with a small smile--Wade adds, "Tell me again why someone hasn't snatched your sorry ass up yet?"

Mark gives Wade a warning look, which Wade ignores. "Because your ugly face never leaves me alone long enough to find someone," Mark jibes, slipping the dish towel off his shoulder and whirling it into a twist between his hands. He takes it in one hand and whips it hard, catching Wade in the thigh.

Wade yelps and jumps away, nearly spilling his beer. "Cease fire, you beast," Wade chuckles, and Mark replaces the towel over his shoulder. "Seriously, buddy. Gertrude is going to show up for her weekly pickup tomorrow and she is going to grill you hard about Slim, White and Irish over here." He jerks a thumb at Jack, whose eyebrows rise.

"Gertrude is about as helpful to my love life as a wrench to the face," Mark says, stirring the frying pan's contents as the mixture sizzles. "So I'll endure her small talk, withstand her grilling, and carry on with my lonesome life." He ignores the comment about Jack, moving to the upper cupboards to his right to take down three plates and set them on the counter.

Wade grunts in response, leaning back on the counter next to the stove on Mark's left. "And what happens when she asks what your goo-goo eyes are all about?" 

Mark confronts Wade with his best Igor face, coupled with a middle finger. Jack looks decidedly discomfited, carding a hand through his hair. "Nice, but that still doesn't make me wrong." Wade casts his gaze between them, back and forth. "Also, on the topic of Mark getting some, the sexual energy between you two could power the Pentagon," he informs them bluntly. Mark makes a rude sound, throwing the wooden spoon in his hand at Wade's face. Wade ducks under it, smirking. "Tell me I'm wrong, guys. Really. Go ahead."

Jack's mouth opens and closes like a fish, his face a medley of indignant, dumbfounded, embarrassed and frustrated. Seeing that look, Mark says to Wade with fire in his tone, "He's barely been here two days and you're honestly going to push us together like we're your personal Ken dolls?" He scoffs, pivoting back to the stove and turning the element off, snatching a clean utensil and dividing the stir fry into three equal servings on the waiting plates. "Jack could be married, Wade, or have a significant other in Ireland, or be straight, or any number of things. All of which is none of my, or your, business." Mark glares at him to enforce the truth of his words.

Wade's eyebrows quirk. "Well. That sure told me. But, again, I'm not wrong."

"I'm not married," Jack says, hesitant. "Or seein' anybody. But I don't date." The "anymore" is missing, but Mark hears it just the same. Jack fidgets, shifting his weight and hastening to Mark's side, to hide behind him, when Wade abruptly turns on him.

"Not married, not seeing anyone," Wade repeats significantly, but Mark doesn't look at him. "Why don't you date, Jack?"

"Wade, would you fucking knock it off?" Mark says, exasperated. He's not sure why, but he feels like he needs to protect Jack from having to defend his decision to Wade. Wade would insist on knowing why Jack refuses to date, the nosy bastard. Mark doesn't know why that bothers him. He grabs a plate and motions for them to do the same, taking a fork out of the cutlery drawer and seating himself at the table. "You're going to send him running for the hills. Leave the guy alone."

Hurrying to copy Mark, Jack takes a plate and sits in the chair on Mark's right. Surprised but not disappointed, Mark offers him the smallest of smiles. Jack returns it.

"See, that. That right there is what I'm talking about," Wade says, pointing dramatically at their faces. He snags the last plate and sits across them. "You've got an illegal amount of chemistry going on here. Accept my wise words, and do the horizontal tango."

Jack rolls his eyes, his cheeks pink. "I don't think he's got his hearin' aids turned on," Jack says casually to Mark, who smiles toothily. He turns to the tallest of the three men present. "Wade, I'm not tryin' to be offensive when I say that I can't see Mark. He's, from what I gather, a wonderful person. But I just can't."

"So," Mark says pointedly, taking another sip from his beer, "we are now dropping it, Wade. The end. Fin. Next chapter." 

His face thunderous, Wade gripes, "Fine. But when you two finally fuck I am going to rub it in your faces so goddamn hard." With that, he starts shovelling food into his mouth.

"Well, isn't this grand," Jack says into the silence. "Just outstandin'." He lifts a forkful of stir fry but hesitates before he eats it, frowning and apparently deep in thought.

"It's edible, I promise," Mark chuckles, chewing. When Jack looks at him, those effervescent blue eyes soften with humour. "Only a third of it is mystery meat."

Cracking a smile, Jack closes his lips around the fork and withdraws it again. Mark only feels a little bit guilty for committing the motion to memory. Jack chews, pensive. "My compliments to the chef," he says quietly after a moment of deliberation. Mark takes another bite to hide his own smile.

 

It's Saturday, a full week since Jack stumbled onto his doorstep, and Mark has convinced himself that he and Jack would be just awful together. 

Jack happens to be far too good a person for Mark to ever deserve him. Mark is a nice guy, does nice things often and treats people well. But Jack is purity incarnate, with an unfathomable sense of faith in people and a pristine moral compass. Mark watches him talk to Chica like a person, chatting away while she's in the room with him. He watches the way Jack interacts with people on the farm or at the market, how he greets everyone with a genuine smile on his face every time, remembers every name and every life story to go with it. He sees the way he respects everyone equally, the way he caters to children and the elderly first at their stall in the market. Mark notices, not for the first time, that Jack's face lights up when he sees someone he recognizes, greets them warmly, like an old friend. When Wade or Mark ask for help he's there in a heartbeat, ready and willing despite having said many times before that he's a flub when it comes to manual labour. 

Mark lifts his head from counting out change for Mr. Hansen's purchase of two pounds of radishes when he hears Wade's excited whoop for joy. Distractedly he hands Mr. Hansen his money with a smile and turns to the commotion. Wade is clapping Jack on the back, their faces split into big smiles. Mark walks over. "What's going on?"

"I sold a paintin', my first one," Jack says happily, dancing in place. "Mrs. Collins bought it. She said it's a gift for her grandson." He laughs delightedly, pressing a hand to the side of his face. "I feel so stupid, but I can't stop smilin'." 

Mark grins, coming forward and squeezing Jack in a short bear hug. He steps away again before he can do anything else. "That's great! I told you it would be no problem." 

Jack laughs, shaking his head. "I know, I should've believed you," he murmurs, setting a hand on Mark's forearm and looking into his eyes. _Just being friendly, he's just being friendly,_ Mark reminds himself hurriedly, ignoring the uptick of his heart. 

Wade looks between them when neither of them turns away. "So, am I just supposed to pretend I don't see this ridiculous display of heart-eyes and semi-boners?"

Quickly Mark looks down, but he's not hard in the slightest. Wade grunts out a laugh beside him and Mark swats at him. "I will commit a felony just to prove a point," Mark warns him.

Wade rolls his eyes and shoves Mark in the shoulder. "Yeah, right. You're as harmful as a kid in a helmet. About as smart, too."

"I pity whatever that makes you, then," Jack snickers. Wade scowls and Mark laughs, high-fiving Jack.

Mark sticks close to Jack for the morning, hovering nearby even while he ought to be prepping more goods to sell or helping Wade with customers. Mark smiles each time one of Jack's paintings sell, basking in the glow that Jack gives off. Jack sells every last painting he brought with them, even the abstract ones and the "goofball hunks of shite" that he thought would never appeal to the small town folks in the area. Wade and Mark sell out, too, as usual, and just past noon they crawl into the truck with the spoils of their drudgery. 

Jack, sitting shotgun, stares dumbfounded at the wad of cash in his hands. "I've never made this much money in one go, especially for my own work." He chuckles, rubbing a hand over his hair. "This is surreal."

"Looks like our little town is just what you needed," Mark agrees. "Are you feeling inspired, engaged, mystified?" He takes his hand off the wheel to poke Jack in the thigh.

Jack pokes him back. "I am, actually," Jack admits, smiling. "The farm is... amazin'. Totally captivatin'. It's everythin' I was lookin' for." The smile on his face falters. 

Mark searches his face, probably longer than he should considering he's driving. "There's a "but" in there somewhere," he prods.

"I..." Jack sighs, looking out the window to the blur of pastures zooming by. "I've been gone from home for over a month. I've been dodgin' my parents' calls, and my brothers' and sisters' too. They're probably really worried, but I can't face them."

"Why?" Mark asks quietly, hardly daring to speak. It's incredible, and very surprising, that Jack is talking about himself. Mark's shocked enough that he's wary of ruining it in any way, including opening his fat mouth.

Jack shrugs, glancing over at Wade in the backseat and then at Mark. "Because I ran away from home," he says, so softly it's difficult to hear. When neither of them says anything he continues, "Because after I came out to them last month, my parents treated me different. They didn't look at me the same, they didn't talk to me like they used to." Jack looks down at his hands, full of bills, as he fidgets but his voice is even. "So I left. I didn't want to feel like a pariah in my own family. I didn't tell my siblin's where I was goin', or what happened, and Ma and Pa don't know where I am either. I didn't tell anyone. I gave my two weeks at my job, waited it out, and then I left."

Wade hums, an understanding sound. "You did what you had to, to be happy. If you weren't happy there then it made no sense to stay. Ireland isn't going anywhere, either. You can always go back."

"Not to mention," Mark adds, and Jack looks up at him, "you're safe, and secure. You're not starving or homeless, or in an unsavoury situation. We've got you, until you decide what's next." He pats Jack on the knee, turning back to the road.

"You assholes make me tear up right now and I will flip my shit," Jack says, wiping the heel of his hand over his eyes. "Sappy focks." But he's smiling again. 

Mark wants to ask, What about dating? Why did you stop? Why aren't I good enough for you to want it? What's wrong with me to make you deny whatever you feel?

But he doesn't. He smiles at Jack and drives.

At the house, Chica comes to greet them as they climb out of the truck. She goes for Mark first, tail wagging ferociously, and jumps on him. He picks her right up off the ground and lets her slobber his face with kisses, cooing nonsense at her before setting her back down. She jumps at Jack next just behind Mark and Jack bends so she can lave his face, too.

"Hey, lassie," Jack says to her, scratching her behind the ears. "You hold up the fort while we were gone? 'Course you did, because you're the best fockin' dog in the world. Yes you are."

Chica leads the way to the front door, sitting primly to wait for someone to let her in. Wade opens it for her, leaving it open as they all file in and Jack shuts it behind him. Singleminded, the three men enter the kitchen and Mark crosses the room and opens the fridge.

"Who's up for an omelet?" Mark offers, already taking the eggs out, as well as the milk jug, mushrooms, the tub of butter, peppers, half an onion and a block of cheese. "What am I saying, of course you're both up for food. Silly me."

"Hey, you just keep cooking and I'll keep eating it," Wade laughs. He refills Chica's food bowl and she begins scarfing down her kibbles. "Hasn't killed me yet."

Mark smirks. "Don't tempt me." He fishes out a large mixing bowl from a lower cabinet and cracks eight eggs into it. Taking a whisk from the utensil jar by the stove, he adds a generous splash of milk and replaces the jug in the fridge.

"Do you want some help?" Jack asks, coming up beside him. "I'm a mean dicer."

"Cutting boards are in that drawer," Mark says, pointing. Jack moves away to retrieve one, also grabbing a large knife from the knife block. He drifts back over to steal some of the vegetables on the counter and sets himself up beside Mark, who stands at the stove with a preheating pan, the glob of butter in it just beginning to melt.

Wade lingers by the fridge, studying them both. "Well. Call me when you're done. I'm going to go phone Molly." He leaves the room.

Jack looks after him, washing vegetables at the sink. "He's pretty keen on havin' us alone together as much as possible, isn't he?"

"Wade is not a subtle man, as you may have noticed," Mark muses. "But he means well, I suppose. He's seen me alone for a long time." He tilts the pan to cascade the butter in all directions on its surface. "He knows it's something I want." When Jack glances at him in question, Mark adds softly, "To love." He looks back down at the pan. "To be loved."

Jack is silent, and Mark doesn't look up again. He whisks the egg mixture in the bowl. When Jack lifts the cutting board with all its minced produce, Mark holds the bowl out to him and, over the bowl, Jack pushes with the knife until the board is wiped clean. Mark whisks it again, stirring in the chunks of vegetables, and then pours the entirety of it into the frying pan.

Taking the cheese block, Jack breaks off a small piece and puts the block back in the fridge. He hunts for a shredder, and wordlessly Mark indicates the right drawer. Back at Mark's side he shreds the piece of cheese into a small bowl and sets it aside, putting the leftover vegetables and the nearly empty egg carton away.

When it's ready Mark manoeuvres the omelet expertly, easing it up on one half of the pan and folding it onto itself, then in one swift motion flipping it over. 

"You're good at that," Jack comments, the only sound in the room besides the mild hissing of frying eggs. "I've seen you cook, but never Wade. Do you do all the cookin'?"

Mark shrugs one shoulder. "He's self-sufficient, but he knows I'm the better cook so he defers to me when I'm around. Wade usually only feeds himself when he can't kowtow me into it." His lips form a small smile. "Or when I'm hiding from the gluttonous dick."

Cutting the omelet into thirds, Jack plates them and scatters cheese on top while Mark pokes his head into the hallway to yell, "Wade! Get that fat ass of yours over here and food yourself!"

""Food yourself"?" Jack parrots, eyebrow quirked. He takes a seat with his plate, fork already in hand.

Mark joins him, retrieving his own fork and plate and taking the seat next to Jack. "I don't know, it sounded funnier in my head."

Jack smiles. "It's a good thing you're pretty, Mark. Otherwise I would worry."

Hiding his reaction to those words, Mark chuckles. "Get to eating, before I pick a fight," Mark teases.

They're over halfway finished their food by the time Wade appears, looking harried and more than a little out of sorts. He practically throws himself into a chair and fixes Mark with an intense look. 

"How long could I be gone from this place before you commit to ensuring my untimely death?" Wade asks him.

Mark's brows lift. "Maybe a week. Why? Are you deserting me again for a holiday with your lady?"

"I'm going to ask Molly to marry me," Wade blurts, hands clenched tightly into fists on the tabletop. "I want to be there for a while before I come back. I also want a lot of time to psyche myself up to it. Because I am a fucking pussy. What am I doing." He drops his forehead onto the table, groaning.

Jack and Mark share a look. "You'll do fine, man," Mark tells him, patting his shoulder. "Molly is completely in love with you, there's no reason to be nervous. If she says no then just throw her over your shoulder like a caveman and take her back to your cave."

"Helpful," Wade grunts. "Why are you my best friend?"

"You and Molly, it's been about four years, yeah?" Jack asks, and Wade nods but doesn't lift his head. "Well, if she hasn't run from you now then I doubt she's goin' anywhere. I don't even think women are capable of bein' with men who they don't see themselves marryin', at least a little bit."

"Totally against their genetic makeup," Mark agrees, and Wade grunts again. "Okay, fine. Grumpy assface. Take eight days." Meanwhile Mark wonders, Holy fuck, how am I going to survive for over a week without Wade?

"That's too long," Wade says instantly, looking up. "Five days, max."

"Seven," Mark counters.

"Six," is Wade's rebuttal. 

"Oh, eight days, Christ," Jack intercepts, giving them both a weary look. "That's enough for Wade to have sex with reckless abandon for a couple days once Molly says yes, and that's not too long that Mark will crawl into a tree hollow and die without him here."

"Diplomat McLoughlin," Mark laughs, then gives Wade a nod. "Eight days, that's fair."

Wade nods too, sitting straighter with his shoulders looking a little less tense. "Alright, eight days. How soon can I leave?"

"Tomorrow," Mark says. At Wade's incredulous look, Mark adds, "Or tonight, actually. I'm sure there's a flight out of LA you could catch. You should go pack." Mark grins when Wade's eyes widen in disbelief.

Jack stands, abandoning his meal to get Wade to his feet. "Come on, you can look for a flight while you pack." Jack gives him a little shove towards the doorway. 

"Okay," he says numbly with a stupid grin on his face, and Wade totters from the room.

Jack turns, giving Mark a tender look. "You're a good man, you know that?" His eyes wander along Mark's body, his face. 

Mark's chest explodes with feeling. "Thank you," he says, smiling. He knows he's blushing, but he can't care at the moment. There's already too much going on in his head, such as a symphony orchestra broadcasting through his brain that Jack is, amazingly, giving him a Look. Like, a _Look_ \--capital "L" Look, because Jack's gaze is unwavering, seeing through every layer Mark has and getting to his gooey centre where his heart and soul lie. His eyes appraise Mark, all of him, and Mark thinks he sees adoration when he looks back.

"But it's selfish of me, really," Mark adds, to bring levity to the room when Jack doesn't look away. "I happen to love weddings."

Jack laughs, a contained burst that lilts off his tongue. "I bet you do," Jack says. "You seem the type to enjoy benevolence in any form."

Mark smiles, beckoning Jack back to his seat with a wave of his hand. Jack sits, and they resume eating. "Don't front with me," Mark says, assessing the man next to him. "You probably hunt the newspapers for the wedding clippings, don't you?" 

"I've got an album full of them," Jack says straight-faced, then giggles. "Weddin's are good, I guess. But my favourite event is a birthday." His face softens with memories. "Ma and Pa always made a big fuss when one of us turned a year older. Hannah's sweet sixteen was a total madhouse, we ended up havin' a food fight right in the kitchen."

"What was your favourite birthday?" Mark asks him.

"My tenth," Jack says without hesitation. "I had been beggin' for months to go see a new aquarium that had opened in Dublin, which isn't far from my hometown. My parents kept tellin' me that I had to save up for it, save my allowances and then we'd go." The smile that spreads over his mouth is peaceful, inherently pure with love for his family. "The mornin' of my birthday they woke me up early and told me to get dressed. After I did, I went into the livin' room and everybody was there. I was pretty surprised since Malcolm and Hannah ought to have been away at school. Then Ma gave me a big hug, told me happy birthday, and handed me the tickets. We all went, and Pa bought me everythin' I wanted. I didn't spend any of the money I had saved."

"It sounds perfect," Mark says, helplessly smiling. "I've got a big brother, Thomas, but he couldn't handle the small town life. He moved to LA a little while after he turned eighteen, and we had a big going away party for him. Big cake, balloons, streamers, and even a huge banner that I made with my mom. He's an artist, too. An illustrator. He makes his own webcomics now. They're pretty good."

"You must miss him," Jack murmurs, morose. 

"Every now and then I go out and visit him, or he comes here," Mark replies. "And we talk on the phone and text." Mark studies him. "You must miss your family a hell of a lot more than I miss mine, though."

Jack shifts in his chair uneasily. "To a degree, I guess," he says. "But... not like I thought I would. I miss Ma and Pa, but they're like a shadow. I don't miss the people they are now, or miss them because they're far away. I miss the people they were before I came out to them. My siblin's I miss every day. It's like nails in my heart." Jack droops, his head hung. "I don't even know why I came to California. For the longest time I was set on New York, thinkin' that the bustle of the city would destroy whatever negativity I had." He scoffs at himself. "But before I bought my ticket, I saw a commercial on TV advertisin' tourism for America. When they showed the Californian scenery, my mind cried out and the only thing I thought was, "I could be there. I could go there in an instant." So I did."

_And it was the best thing that ever happened to me,_ Mark thinks. "I'm glad you did," he tells Jack. "Despite everything, I'm happier than I've been in a long time. So, thank you for changing your mind."

Raising his head, Jack looks at him sadly. "Mark," he begins, but doesn't finish. He sighs.

_Well, I definitely must've imagined that adoration earlier,_ Mark chastises himself. "I didn't tell you that so you could feel bad about it," Mark says, half-scowling. "I said that so you'd feel like you didn't make a mistake by taking my extra room and letting me inflict myself on you."

Jack glowers at him. "And it's that kind of thing that makes me think I did make a mistake. I can see what it does to you, havin' me close but not bein' able to do shit about it." Jack looks away, across the kitchen to where Chica lay on the floor in front of the back door, asleep. "I'm a burden here, as much as I was at home."

"Take that back," Mark snaps, grabbing Jack by the shoulder and shaking him. "The second you become a hindrance I will tell you, but that day won't come. So can that shitty attitude." He sighs, leaning back and letting go when Jack glances at him. "I guess you don't know me well enough to know this, but I don't lie. I say what I mean when I want, and that's it. So if I tell you," Mark tentatively places his hand on Jack's forearm, resting on the table, "that your vivacity, your spirit makes me more alive than I've been in years, then I mean it."

Slowly, Jack slides his arm out from under Mark's hand, and Mark swallows the disappointment that rises in his throat. Jack doesn't say anything, doesn't rebuke or encourage Mark's feelings, so Mark nods and stands. He takes their dishes to the sink and leaves them there. Grabbing Wade's untouched plate, he gives Jack a last look. The man's eyes are downcast, his body still with thoughtfulness. Mark leaves the room.

Upstairs, Wade is mostly packed. Mark stands in his doorway as he finishes, then offers him the plate. "You didn't eat yet. Thought I'd bring this up for you."

Wade takes it and sets it back down on his dresser, giving Mark a penetrative stare. "What did you say to him now?" he asks Mark, disapproving.

"Nothing," Mark says. "It's nothing, there is nothing, I said nothing." He folds his arms and leans on the doorjamb. When Wade glares at him, Mark adds, "I hit on him again. I got shot down hard."

"Damn," Wade sighs. "And here I thought he was warming up to you." He zips his suitcase and hefts it off his bed, carting it to the doorway. "Did he say anything?"

"Not a word," Mark says stonily.

Wade sighs again. "Fuck. _Fuck_ ," he says again with inflection. "I'm sorry, Mark." 

Mark shrugs, taking Wade's suitcase and bringing it down the hall and downstairs to the front door. "I should know better. It's not like this is the first time I tried with him. He blatantly told me that he's not on the market. Period."

"Still," Wade says, putting on his shoes as Mark does, "I see the way he looks at you. I know he's got something going on for you."

"Whatever it is, it doesn't matter or it's not enough," Mark tells him sharply. "And I'm perfectly capable of following instructions, so I'd better start. Jack told me he's off-limits, so he is off-limits. Especially to me."

"Why especially to you?" Wade queries, frowning. "He's got the hots for you like crazy." He gets the door for Mark, who lugs the large suitcase to the truck. Mark lifts it up and over the tailgate to set it in the truck bed.

"Because," Mark says, turning to him, "it wouldn't matter if I kissed the ground he walks on. Jack is resolutely against me. I have no idea why, so don't ask me. But the word he used was "especially"." Wearily Mark rubs his hands over his face. "If he's nuts about me, then it's clearly in an easily ignored crush kind of way. And not the Earth-stopping way that I find myself in."

"And here I am leaving you two alone for over a week," Wade chuckles. When Mark doesn't smile even slightly, his face straightens. "I'll need a ride to the airport. I booked a flight for today, five hours from now."

"I'll take you," Mark says. "Let me go tell Jack." He makes his way inside, grabbing his keys off the hook by the door, and heads to the kitchen where Jack is doing dishes. He wants to watch him, but that hardly helps his infatuation. He walks up to the sink and taps Jack's arm. 

Jack looks over his shoulder. Mark says, "I'm taking Wade to LA to catch his flight. I should be back by this evening. If someone asks where I am, just tell them." He turns away, walking back the way he came.

"Mark, wait," Jack says quickly. When Mark doesn't stop he hears footsteps behind him. "Mark, please."

"I have to go," Mark says dully, pausing briefly at the front door. "If I'm not back before dark then lock the doors and close the windows. I have my key with me." He jingles the keys in his hand as emphasis.

"Look at me, Mark," Jack begs, grabbing his hand before he can leave. Mark could easily get out of his grip--he's got at least fifty pounds on Jack--but he waits, facing out the open door. "Will you look at me?"

"No," Mark says, because if he does then he knows he's done for. Those eyes... 

Jack sighs behind him, his fingers squeezing Mark's hand. "I'm sorry," Jack says gently. "I'm sorry I can't... that I can't--"

"Don't lie to me," Mark interrupts. "You can. You're able to do it. You just don't want to."

Silence sits on them like a boulder, heavy and impossible. "I don't know what's goin' to happen with me," Jack finally whispers. "I don't know if I'm goin' home, or stayin', or continuin' on to somewhere else. I just don't know."

"I understand," Mark mumbles, then tugs his hand free. He feels the warmth of Jack's skin there like the touch of a ghost. "I already thought every angle of this through. Your reasons are your own, and you gave me warning. Very fair warning. I'm the idiot who decided to ignore it all."

"I owe you an explanation," Jack hurries, latching instead to Mark's shirt sleeve. "Because you know, you have to know that I feel the same."

"But does it make a difference?" Mark asks him, turning. Jack's eyes immediately find his, imploring him to listen. To listen to the fuel that pours out of his mouth, while Mark is already ablaze. "If I kissed you right now, if I told you to touch me, if I took your hand and asked you to my bed, would you accept me? Would you even consider it? Or would you refuse me?"

Jack hesitates significantly, indefinitely. Gently Mark pries his fingers off his shirt. "Exactly. Whatever you've got going on has absolutely nothing to do with me. We've both figured that out." He steps away, through the door frame and onto the porch. "I'll be back tonight. Do us both a favour and be asleep when I return."

Mark closes the door, a quiet click signifying that the latch has caught. He breathes for a minute, head tipped back and his face to the sky. Then he walks to his truck, gets in, and drives.

 

By the time he and Wade hit the outskirts of the City of Angels, Mark's mood had already dwindled from "raging beast of pathetic sadness" to "who cares, fuck it all", followed by "oh my God I miss him". After explaining everything to Wade, his best friend had no advice. He could only offer condolence and suggest that maybe Mark help Jack find somewhere else to stay. When they said goodbye at the airport Wade gave him a big hug and told him, "You'll get through this, buddy. Just like always." Mark isn't so sure. He wishes Wade good luck and waves as he disappears into the airport.

Mark's phone rings when he's five minutes from home, his head full and his heart empty. Glancing at it in the passenger seat, Mark sees the call is from Jack. His chest spasms with brief pain, and then excitement. Warily he picks up the phone, staring at it for a second before pressing 'talk'. "Hello?"

"I know you told me to be asleep by now," Jack's voice says defensively in his ear, and Mark's heartbeat blips unsteadily, "but I can't fall asleep until I know you're safe at home. Sorry, I'm a worrier. I get nervous when people travel. I don't like long trips, either, which is pretty ironic. Where are you?" Jack rambles.

"I'm down the highway, almost there," Mark soothes him, smiling helplessly. "Should be there in minutes." He takes the turn onto the dirt road that, after a second turn, will take him home. "By the way, I'm perfectly fine--no maimed body parts or mutilated flesh. It seems I can drive eight hours all on my own and survive to tell the tale."

Jack laughs, a self-conscious sound. "I guess I'm bein' a bit ridiculous, aren't I? It's just..." Jack sighs and pauses. "I'm not a fan of the whole 'bein' by myself' thing. Like, actually by myself. No one around if somethin' happened, no one even on the whole farm. Everybody went home and after a while I just kind of freaked out a bit. Needed to hear a familiar voice."

And he called me, Mark thinks with wonder. Then reality gives him a wake-up pinch. Who else would he call? He's estranged from his family and friends in Ireland and Mark's the first person he's met in America that he spends even a modicum of time with. As for Wade, Jack's admitted that he isn't close with him, so he wouldn't call him either. Mark is pretty much all Jack has. Despite being the only real option, Mark still finds himself in a euphoric mood that Jack chose him.

"I get it," Mark says gently. "You can call me anytime you need me, day or night."

"Don't go gettin' a big head," Jack chuckles. "I can hear it inflatin' from here." As an afterthought he tacks on, "And, thank you."

Mark smiles as he takes the left onto the short road to his property, down one side of a line of trees stretching westward until it bends and curves down to become the driveway of his house. Jack is silent on the other end, and Mark is content to listen to his breathing. A minute's barely passed and he's pulling up to the front of the house, headlights skirting beams of light across the front windows as Mark stops the truck. 

"I'm here," Mark says.

"Okay, I'm comin' out," Jack replies, and the line goes dead. 

Mark cuts the engine and hops down, shutting the door behind him and rotating his shoulders with a weary sigh. Nothing exhausts you in quite the same way that excess driving does, Mark notes.

The front door opens and Chica comes bursting out of it, heading straight for Mark. He crouches and tumbles with her to the ground as she gets to him. Her squeaky noises of excitement are the only sound in the near-darkness as she rolls around on her back under Mark. He bats at her tail and digs his fingers into her fur, grinning widely and baby-talking her. When she rockets to her feet and makes a break for the front door, Mark stands and follows.

Jack lingers in the open doorway, the porch light illuminating the immediate area and slowly dissipating outwards. Mark holds his eyes as he mounts the stairs then stops before him. 

"I'm safe and sound," Mark says, for something to say. Jack nods, looking away and then back again, his expression unusual. "So, no need to call the police and the fire department."

Smiling wryly Jack shoves Mark's shoulder. "Shut up, you arse. Be grateful that I worried about you at all."

"Be still, my beating heart," Mark coos, fluttering a hand at his throat. He winks at Jack, who stiffens and blushes. "You're so cute. Look at you, red as a rose."

"Quit fockin' teasin' me and get in here," Jack gripes, stepping aside to admit Mark into the house. When Mark passes him he greatly resists the urge to pinch Jack's cheeks. Once Mark is inside Jack shuts the door and snicks the lock behind him. Chica sits at their feet, tail tapping against the floor.

Mark bends to untie his boots and toes them off, kicking them to the side of the door. When he straightens Jack is still there, hovering uncertainly in the hall. "What is it?" Mark asks him, because he obviously needs something.

Jack opens his mouth to speak and then closes it, looking frustrated. "I just wanted to apologize again, for this afternoon. I'm constantly puttin' my foot in my mouth around you," Jack says begrudgingly. "And I don't mean to make you think I don't care. I do care, but..."

"You don't have to explain, it's alright," Mark says, coming forward to pat Jack on the shoulder. He doesn't let his hand linger. "I mean, it's not as if I understand, but I can empathize a bit. You're not ready for anything, and I'm not who you'd pick if you were. It's fine." Meanwhile Mark's mind rampages, insisting that it is not fine and Jack should want him infinitely, as much as or more than Mark wants him. Mark shakes his head to clear his thoughts.

Jack sighs, running a hand through his hair. "If it were anyone, it would be you," Jack admits quietly, holding his gaze.

Mark's heart somersaults and he has to catch himself before he takes a step forward. "Um," he says dumbly, then for good measure steps away. "That... I didn't know that." His hands clench at his side to deter reaching out and grabbing any part of Jack he can get at. "But you probably shouldn't encourage me, by saying things like that."

Ducking his head Jack murmurs, "Right. Sorry." He rubs at his arm, fidgets with his wristbands. "Listen, I just--I feel like I owe you an explanation, for why I'm bein' so fockin' difficult."

Mark forces himself to shrug. "It's up to you what you want to share with me," he states. "And it certainly doesn't concern me." _Please share with me, please tell me something about you,_ Mark begs internally.

Jack seems to deliberate for a moment, then he leans forward and grabs Mark's hand, dragging him up the stairs and to Jack's room. Mark goes willingly, his stomach devolving into nothing but a wriggling mass of worms.

When they stand in the middle of Jack's room, he lets go and turns to Mark. His face has 'serious' written all over it. He gestures to the bed for Mark to sit and he does. Jack sits next to him. "First of all," Jack begins, his voice steady, "I just want you to know that when I said I wasn't sure if I was stayin' or goin' or whatever, that wasn't completely true. I don't want to leave this place for anythin'. I love it here. I want to breathe the air here until all I smell is dirt and plants and vegetables."

Mark's heart leaps. Jack doesn't want to leave. He wants to stay, indefinitely. "I'm glad to hear it," Mark enthuses, smiling wide.

"Secondly," Jack continues, and now he looks nervous, "I left Ireland because of my parents, but before I told them I was gay I told my good friend. He took it okay, not great but okay." Jack's mouth twists in misery, but he keeps going. "So I thought, "Hell, why not?" And I told him I loved him too." Jack looks down at his hands in his lap. "He yelled a lot, punched me in the face and told me to never speak to him again."

So he's not just nursing bruised pride and a scarred ego, but a doubly broken heart. "How much is a ticket to Ireland?" Mark asks, his tone dangerous. His hands, at his sides, curl into tight fists. Suppressing the black rage clawing to get out of his chest, Mark adds, "And where's this... friend of yours live?"

Jack gives him a small smile. "No, you're not goin' to go beat the snot out of him. But I appreciate the thought." He looks down again. "I told him, and after all that happened I still wanted to tell Ma and Pa, so I did. When they didn't... take it well, I decided to cut my losses and get the hell out."

"And I bet after all that, you wanted to wash your hands of your sexuality completely," Mark muses somewhat cynically.

"You would be right," Jack says, sighing. "Which is why I'm not datin'. I need time to myself, to figure out what the hell it is I'm tryin' to do with my life."

He's put on a brave face, but Mark can see beyond it to where the hurt lies. Jack is far from over what happened to him. It would be cruel of Mark to pursue him at all, at this point. "Well, you're welcome to figure it out here," Mark says, clapping a hand onto Jack's back and jostling him a bit. "I'm not going to be around to entertain you as much, what with Wade being gone. Too much work to do. So you'll have lots of time to yourself to figure out whatever needs figuring."

Ever so slightly, Jack leans into his touch. "You don't know what that means to me," Jack says softly. He lists to the side until his shoulder brushes Mark's and stays there.

Mark holds his breath, hardly daring to move. _He's just seeking comfort,_ Mark reminds himself, forcing his muscles to loosen. He lets out a breath slowly. "My pleasure," Mark murmurs, but the words come out throaty and low. Nearly seductive. _Stop it,_ Mark tells his body sternly.

"I wish--" Jack starts, then closes his mouth.

"What?" Mark asks with bated breath.

Jack looks over at him, resigned. "I wish I had it in me to let everythin' go. I wish I could be ready."

Mark swallows, glancing down at his feet. "Don't force it. You'll heal in time." Inhaling and sliding away, he adds with levity, "Everything will fall into place, y'know? So don't stress out. I'm here if you need someone to talk to or you want some company, and for everything else," Mark smiles at him, "there's a canvas just waiting for you."

Jack smiles, too. His hand rests on Mark's thigh, squeezes gently. "Thank you," Jack whispers.

_Kiss him,_ Mark's traitorous mind tells him. Mark dispels the thought, but it mumbles to him regardless. _Kiss him, he wants it. He's looking at you like you look at him. Touch him. Kiss him._ He sits straight, easing back and standing. Jack's hand slips away. "Thanks for telling me, about Ireland," Mark says genuinely. "I'm not very pleased that it all happened, but I'm happy it brought you here." _It brought you to me,_ Mark thinks with feeling, studying Jack's open, vulnerable expression.

Standing, Jack nods. "Me too," he smiles. "Anyway, you'd better get to bed if you've got an early mornin'."

"I've always got an early morning," Mark grouches, but he grins over his shoulder as he leaves Jack's room. "Goodnight."

"'Night," Jack says, and he softly shuts the door behind Mark.

In the hall, Mark jumps in the air and does a weird little jig, flailing his limbs and somehow dancing at the same time. Chica, snoozing on the hall rug, opens her eyes to give him a judging look. 

Mark goes into his room, leaving the door open for Chica. Jack is opening up to him, bit by bit. With Wade gone, there's no nagging pressure for the two of them to get closer unnaturally, no pushing, and it seems like Jack is responding well to just having Mark around. Mark himself couldn't be happier with the turn of events. Instead of receding further from him, Jack is reaching out to him. Sharing secrets, initiating touches--if relatively innocent touches--and even saying things like, "I wish I could be ready" and "If it were anyone, it would be you." 

As he undresses Mark closes his eyes, letting the words wash over him. If it were anyone it would be you. He can't stop the stupid grin that spreads over his face.

_Progress,_ he thinks cheerily as he gets into bed. Progress.

 

Dismally Mark looks north down the fence line, where weathered fence stretches on and on. Behind him, the fence is completely repaired all the way to the corner where the southern side of the fence meets the eastern side. The south and north fence are already replaced from last year, and now all that's left is the northeast corner.

Loading up the flatbed of his Gator with the old boards, Mark mentally estimates how long the project will take him alone. Likely until tomorrow evening, at the latest. There's a significant chunk of fence left, but the majority of the job was finished while Wade was still here. Maybe a third is remaining that requires his attention.

Mark mends fence until he runs out of lumber, then tosses all the rotten planks on the flatbed and makes his way back to the shed. On the way Mark spots the pond, sitting pretty in the midday light, and he debates going for a dip or continuing working. With a sigh he drives on. He's got way too much to do with Wade gone to even consider slacking off. 

Vaguely Mark notes the time as he unloads the old wood and restocks the flatbed with boards and nails. It's well past noon and Mark ought to stop and eat, but he just wants this goddamn fence done and out of his way. If he pushes hard today he can get the whole thing completed by supper tomorrow.

The fence gives him the afternoon to bake in the heat of the sun, and Mark's water bottle has long since run dry by the time his watch hits 3 p.m. He finally calls it quits just before supper, the remainder of the fence glaring at him as he cleans up after himself and drives back to the house.

Jack is on the back porch painting when Mark gets there, the Gator unburdened of decrepit wood and locked away in the shed. Looking up from his small canvas on his easel, Jack waves and smiles. Mark waves back, surreptitiously devouring Jack with his eyes. The Irishman is wearing a pair of distressed skinny jeans and a loose t-shirt that's so baggy it practically hangs off him. The collar of the shirt is stretched beyond recognition, and hangs off of one shoulder. Mark may be drooling.

"You're awfully clean for an artist," Mark comments, gesturing to Jack and referring to the lack of paint smears on his person. "You sure you're Jack? Because, I mean, that guy can paint. And he doesn't usually come out of it unscathed."

Smiling toothily Jack rebukes, "I swear there's a farmer under all that dirt and sweat." He squints at Mark, as if trying to peer through something. "Pretty handsome one, too. Shame. He's just too filthy."

"Oh, you wanna see filthy?" Mark growls, teasing. He bounds up the steps and comes right up to Jack, crowding him back against the porch railing. "This dirty farmer is going to get you even dirtier." Taking Jack's face in one hand Mark drags the palm of his opposite hand down Jack's cheek, leaving behind a considerable swath of sweaty grime, then does the same down his neck and arms. For bonus points he takes handfuls of Jack's shirt and begins rubbing the cloth on his forearms and hands.

"Hey!" Jack laughs, shoving Mark away. Picking up his palette, Jack draws his fingertips through the myriad of colours, this time a generous mix of white, cerulean and viridian, and spears his hand into Mark's hair.

Mark squawks indignantly, batting at Jack's hands. Jack goes back for more paint and this time he pats a painty handprint on Mark's neck, then a second on Mark's exposed chest at the base of his throat. "This means war," Mark rumbles, and takes Jack under the armpits to lift him bodily off the ground. 

With a squeak Jack exclaims, "Jesus fock, Mark, put me down!" He clings to Mark's arms, his legs wiggling. 

"Put you down?" Mark hollers as he walks to the yard, as if he's hard of hearing. He jostles Jack, slightly tossing him up to get a better grip. "Sure thing, buddy." 

Jack looks over his shoulder, sees his trajectory and his wiggling intensifies. "Mark, come on now, you wouldn't..."

Mark grins like a wolverine. "Wouldn't I?" Bee-lining for the industrial-sized water barrel at the back of the yard, Mark can't stop himself from rubbing his thumbs on Jack's stomach. His skin is tantalizingly warm, even through his t-shirt, and Mark wants to taste it.

At the barrel Jack positively spider monkeys himself to Mark's arms, clinging for dear life. "I'd rather be slightly filthy than soppin' fockin' wet," Jack shrieks as Mark dangles him close to the side. "Christ, I'm sorry, I won't paint on you, I promise!"

"Pinky promise?" Mark croons, hefting Jack a couple inches higher and feeling the responsive tightening of his grip on Mark's arms.

"Fock, you can have my whole damn hand if ye want it!" Jack says. His nails dig into Mark's skin.

"Ah, alright then," Mark says easily, and sets Jack on his feet.

Glaring heartily Jack punches Mark in the arm. "Fockin' tool." But then his expression softens, and he lifts a hand to Mark's face where his wet handprint lay. "You make a good canvas."

"A good canvas?" Mark pouts, but his heart is doing the polka as Jack's fingers caress him. "Who the hell wants to be a good canvas?"

"You could be a good model, too, I suppose," Jack says pensively. "But how would I know if I've never had you sit for a drawing?" he adds cheekily.

Mark scoffs. "Like you've never drawn me," he teases, but then Jack blushes scarlet and won't look at him. "Oh my God, have you actually drawn me?"

Quickly Jack is apologetic. "Not like, creepily or anythin'!" he hurries to assure Mark. "I don't follow you 'round and draw you all day. I just doodle by memory, or if I see you in the back yard or somethin' and I've got my sketch pad, I'll do a brief pose." He looks nervous, like a kid caught vandalizing furniture or walls with non-washable markers.

It's Mark's turn to blush. "I--Damn," he laughs, hiding his embarrassment by smiling. "I'm really flattered. Do you draw everyone?"

Seeing that Mark won't make fun of him, Jack only hesitates for a second before answering, "Some people, yeah. I like to pick strikin' features, or overall compellin' faces. I've drawn Mrs. Collins, and Teddy Barnes, from the market," Jack lists, and there's a tiny smile on his lips. "I've drawn Wade once or twice." Here he pauses, his eyes firmly on the ground. "I draw you the most, though."

"A guy might read into such things," Mark says lowly, provocatively, before he can stop himself. His eyes burn into Jack's when he looks up.

Jack's throat jerks with a swallow. "You don't know how crazy you make me," he whispers, staring back. "I want to draw you all the time. I want to touch you all the time. I..."

"Stop now," Mark advises when Jack falters, and takes several steps backward just to be safe. "Not that I don't want to hear it, because holy fuck do I want to hear all of it. But," he sighs, "we have to be careful." _Very careful,_ Mark scolds himself. Nuclear levels of care.

Jack nods, smudging himself with paint as he fiddles his fingers along his skin. "I know, I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinkin'."

_Fuck it, just fuck it and kiss him,_ Mark's mind coaxes. Jack obviously wants him, but Mark doubts one day would have changed his tune about not being ready for anything. Jack could just be in a flirtatious mood. "I really want to kiss you," Mark tells him, smiling wryly. "And I'm having every single conversation in my head right now on why that's a horrible idea."

"You are not alone there," Jack chuckles nervously, rubbing at his neck and spreading paint even further. Mark traces the lines of colour with his eyes obsessively. He glances at Mark, speculative. "Would you consider modellin' for me?" he asks abruptly.

"Uh," Mark begins with. His brain catches up after a moment, mentally repeating the question. "Fuck, I mean, yeah? I don't know how good I'll be at sitting still for more than ten minutes during the work day, but you're welcome to try and contain me."

"Great," Jack sighs and grins, relieved. "Because I've been cravin' to do a good portrait of you and I wasn't sure how to ask without bein'... well, creepy."

Something stirs in Mark's chest at that. Jack singled him out for a specific painting, in a style that he doesn't even do often, just because it's Mark. "You couldn't be creepy even if you tried," Mark laughs, throwing an arm around Jack's shoulders as they walk back to the house. He holds Jack close to his body, and his skin thrums with electricity when Jack's arm rests across his lower back. His hand cups Mark's waist and Mark smothers a shiver.

"Yeah, you're right," Jack mumbles. "I'm not scary at all." He turns to face Mark and, with his free hand, claws the air like a beast. "Rwoar," he growls in a supposedly menacing way, then laughs. "I can't even do that with a straight face."

"That was fucking adorable," Mark chuckles as they reach the back door. He opens it and lets Jack go, gesturing him inside with a butler-like bow. Jack giggles as he passes and Mark straightens with a smile, his heart melting into a gooey mess under his ribs. He follows Jack in.

"I don't know about you," Jack smirks, pausing in the kitchen and eyeing Mark head to toe, "but I need a shower."

"Undoubtedly," Mark agrees. He likes what those eyes do to him. Snagging Jack's shirt and pulling him a bit closer, Mark pointedly slides his grit-covered hands down both of Jack's arms, under the pretence of getting him even filthier, and lets them linger at Jack's wrists. "Water conservation is a thing. We ought to think of the environment. Shower together. You know." Mark is only joking, at least he thinks he is, but when Jack looks up his eyes burn with internal fire.

Grinning sheepishly at his own forwardness Mark averts his eyes, moving away a few steps, and rubs a nervous hand on his neck. "Just kidding. You can go first," he amends. "I'll wait."

Jack gives him a long look before he nods, turning and leaving the room. Mark only breathes again once he hears the shower turn on.

"Stupid," Mark groans to himself. Very, very stupid. He's going crazy with touching Jack, some platonically acceptable and some... less so. And while Jack is open to his advances now, Mark shouldn't even be making them in the first place. He promised he would be neutral, completely professional with Jack, and he just about threw him into a water basin not five minutes ago in the name of good fun.

Mark makes his way upstairs, thinking. Jack appears to be equally flirty, though, and that's a problem. Not to say that Mark dislikes it--in fact the reverse is true--but it won't help Mark stay in check if Jack is touching him back, initiating things, flirting and bantering. Mark is on shaky ground as it is with his own willpower. 

Jack being extremely comfortable with him brings to light another issue; it makes Mark want... permanence. Already he's so used to the Irishman's company, his presence in the house and on the farm. He paints and paints, scattering himself across the property. Every day Mark has found him somewhere different, but more than once he's caught him near or at the small pond, sketching or painting anything from a collection of lily pads to the surrounding trees to the wooden dock that steps a few feet into the water and leads out to the grassy shore. Jack is becoming omnipresent in Mark's life, and Mark can't find an ounce of regret or dissatisfaction in him about it.

Belatedly Mark realizes he's standing at the top of the staircase and looking blankly into space. He gives himself a shake and goes to his room where he fishes out clean clothes from his dresser drawers. Then he sits on his bed, anxiously killing time on his phone as he waits for Jack to finish showering.

He isn't kept waiting long. A few minutes later Mark hears the shower shut off, and another minute passes before the bathroom door opens. Moments later Jack appears in his doorway with just a towel folded around his hips. 

"It's all yours," Jack says pleasantly, combing his fingers through the lengthy hair atop his head. Mark thinks he makes some noise of assent, but he's not sure. Jack, while not the most remarkable male specimen, is breathtaking. His body is lithely muscled, his lightly defined chest scoured with hair that continues on in a V shape on his torso until it tapers into a line down his stomach and disappears under his towel. He's hairier than Mark thought he'd be, but he's not complaining. The sight of so much of Jack's skin makes Mark's face flame.

"Thanks," Mark finally says, standing quickly. Jack backs up as Mark shoulders his way past him in the doorway. Despite his haste Mark is still harangued by his smell, Jack's mouthwatering, gut-clenching smell that sends Mark's brain into a tailspin. Mark locks himself in the bathroom, tossing his clean clothes onto the counter beside the sink, and pees before stripping and running the shower at a scalding temperature. 

The long ablutions help him sort his chaotic thoughts into something linear, at least, but it does little for his physical excitement. With a soft moan Mark wraps a hand around his half-hard cock, giving it a sure stroke from tip to base and back again. _I shouldn't,_ Mark thinks with a sigh. Not with Jack nearby. He lets his hand fall and finishes his shower.

As Mark towels his hair, his belly grumbles loudly and insistently. It occurs to him when he recalls the events of his day that he skipped lunch and hasn't yet eaten supper. Hunger pains squeeze his stomach in a wrenching grip and Mark runs a fast brush through his hair, jumps into his clean clothes--his favourite pair of sweatpants and a loose tank top--and goes downstairs to find something to eat.

But before he even gets to the kitchen he smells the heavenly aroma of cooking food. Mark stops in the doorway when he sees Jack bustling barefoot at the stove with two frying pans, the long sleeves of his blue henley pushed up to his elbows and his delicious jean-clad ass swaying to whatever music is flowing through the earphones in his ears. 

Mark leans on the door frame, smiling goofily as he watches Jack hum along to what Mark identifies as "Teenage Dirtbag". Skulking up behind the man, Mark gets close enough to hover right over his shoulder and cries out, "Well, I'm just a teenage dirtbag, baby!"

Jack gasps, whirling in place and then leaping back against the counter with a hand at his throat and his eyes blown wide. Laughing breathlessly he cries, "Fock sake, Mark, are ya tryin' to give me a fockin' heart attack?"

"Not really," Mark tells him, grinning. "Couldn't help it. Sorry."

"Yeah, I can really see your heartfelt remorse," Jack chuckles, shoving Mark's chest lightly with both hands. "I have the decency to cook for you and this is the thanks I get?"

Mark feels the touch of his hands like a brand on his skin, making him substantially warmer under the collar. "Well, with Wade gone I need someone to pester," Mark says with a short chuckle. "Don't you feel so lucky?"

"Maybe that's my horrible luck of the Irish at work again," Jack says, tongue-in-cheek. He turns back to the stove, picking up a flat spatula lying on the counter next to him.

Mark comes to his side and sniffs the air above the pans. "Whatcha making? Smells great."

"Boxties and fried bread," Jack tells him. "Two of my favourites from home." He flips what looks like a lumpy pancake, and then carries on to several more in the large pan on his right. On his left sizzles a pan with slices of bread in some kind of fat or oil. "Boxties are like potato pancakes, but I took some artistic liberty with the usual recipe since I knew you'd be hungry as all hell. I added a bunch of that smoked ham we had in the fridge and some bacon, and lots of spinach." He points to the frying slices of bread, which he also flips. Their reverse side is crispy and browned. "And that's just bread in bacon fat."

"Sounds amazing," Mark sighs, smelling again. "The Irish are geniuses."

Jack laughs, shooing him away. "Go on, sit. I don't need any help. Everythin's almost done."

Mark pulls down two plates and grabs some cutlery out of a drawer. "How'd you know I would be hungry?"

"You didn't come back for lunch," Jack shrugs. "I've been paintin' on the back porch all day and I didn't see you barely at all, just to go back an' forth with wood."

"You were being a worrywart again, weren't you?" Mark presumes, when he sees the tense set of Jack's shoulders.

"No," Jack says defensively. He checks the underside of the boxties, and they seem to be to his satisfaction because he begins plating them up on the dishes that Mark holds out. "I'm just an observant person, that's all."

Mark sets the plates aside and gives Jack a piercing look. "You know, it's okay to admit you worry about me," he murmurs. "I'm not offended. I think it's really sweet of you."

Jack ducks his head, blushing. "It's embarrassin'. You didn't ask for a mother, you've got one."

"Then mother me, I don't give a damn," Mark insists. "It's nice to have someone at least act like they care about me, anyway." Mark's not sure he meant for that second part to come out quite like that. He hadn't meant to sound so... lonely.

Jack's looking at him with sadness and Mark turns away so he can't see it. "I'm not actin'," Jack says softly, and there's a hand on Mark's arm. "What I feel for you is genuine."

Mark doesn't know if he believes that. "But untouchable," he murmurs. He slips away from him. "Is the fried bread done?"

With a sigh Jack turns to the pan and extracts the bread from the fat, directly onto waiting paper towel and then onto the plates Mark holds. Wordlessly Mark hands him one, and some cutlery, and then moves to the table and sits. Jack joins him, taking the seat to his left. 

They eat in silence (after Mark compliments his cooking and Jack thanks him) until both their plates are empty. The silence stretches until Jack says awkwardly, "Could--Are you busy tonight?" 

The fence could be mostly completed if Mark goes back out and utilizes the rest of his daylight, but he's already showered and he long since discovered he can't tell Jack no. "Free as a bird," he tells the Irishman easily. 

Jack smiles brightly. "D'you think I could steal you for the evenin'? So I can do some sketches, and maybe a paintin'?" He looks so hopeful that Mark would consider it an actual crime to dampen his enthusiasm. 

Mark hums, standing and collecting their dishes and bringing them to the sink. He studies the stack of dirty dishes, a pot and the two frying pans, several and various dining dishes, and some mixing bowls. Vaguely he thinks, _I ought to wash these before I go anywhere._ But the anticipation of being the sole focus of Jack's attention is enough to set his hands shaking, and is far too tempting to delay. He turns to Jack, smiling. "You've got me until I collapse from exhaustion. And even then, I'm sure I'm somewhat interesting while asleep."

Hiding a smile, Jack stands and moves to the archway. When Mark follows, locking the back door on his way to shutting the kitchen light off, Jack says gratefully, "Thank you. You don't know how much I appreciate this. Havin' a model is like a cookie dough cheesecake to me. Utter bliss." 

He and Jack make their way upstairs and into Jack's room, where the sunlight filters in through the sheer curtains. Suddenly Jack stops, spinning around. "I left my easel and shit outside. Ehm, be right back." Quickly Jack darts from the room and Mark hears his footsteps in the quiet house, down the stairs and along the hall and he distinctly hears the back door open and, moments later, shut. 

Appearing in the doorway again Jack is laden with a collapsed easel, the half-finished painting and his small foldable table and a large box full of paint supplies. He smiles as he breathes huffily. "I'm so excited," he says, bouncing in place as he sets every thing down again. He grabs the bed, an easy thing to do without help with the simple wrought iron bed frame, and pulls it to angle in front of the window into the patch of sunlight coming through it. Then he rushes out of the room again, coming back with the armchair from--from Mark's room.

"Uh," Mark comments, gesturing to the chair with a raised eyebrow.

Jack sets it down in the corner of the room, facing the bed. He turns to Mark sheepishly. "I need a comfy seat, this could be a while," he explains, but it sort of sounds like a question.

Mark smiles at Jack's expression, diffident and wanting. "Of course," he says, and Jack relaxes, bringing his art supplies to the chair and setting everything up. Finally, he fishes around under a pile of paper by his dressers--half-finished sketches, at least forty loose pages--and withdraws his sketchbook from the mass, which he sets on the seat of the chair along with a sheaf of pencils, differing in shade and thickness. 

Unsure now, Jack stands at the bed and waves Mark over. Mark moves to his side, and Jack says, "Sit, and get comfortable. Um, maybe like, lounge along the bed."

Mark nods and gets onto Jack's bed, laying himself on his side and leaning on his left elbow. Jack manhandles him gently, adjusting the lay of his arm along his body or the tilt of his head. When he's finished Mark is resting his head in his hand, stretched out along his left side with his legs slightly bent at the knee and his other hand coming down to rest across his stomach.

"Now look that way," Jack murmurs, pointing over his shoulder to the window, and Mark obeys. Jack plays with the angle of his face, his hand at Mark's chin for a moment longer then stands back, studying Mark's pose. "Perfect, don't move," he breathes, then scurries back to his seat. Pushing aside the easel and paints to get his sketchbook and pencils off the cushion, Jack settles himself in, lifting his knees to sit on the edge of the chair's front and perching his sketchbook there on his thighs. 

Mark glances over, smiling. "If I hadn't already been enamoured with you by now, this moment would've just cinched it." His smile widens when Jack looks at him with surprise, then embarrassment. "Never mind, don't listen to me. I'll just distract you."

Jack gives a short bark of a laugh. "You do that regardless," he says. Then he points to the window again and Mark obediently switches his gaze.

For a long time Mark watches Jack out of the corner of his eye, sees his head flick up every three seconds or so and the calculated flick of his arm as his hand dances across the page, switching pencils randomly. Jack sometimes murmurs a command and Mark complies, minutely moving his leg or shoulder. Mark feels himself slowly reacting the longer he feels Jack studying him, drawing him, and he does his best to will his erection away. He's almost certain Jack notices though (thanks, sweatpants) if the way he suddenly goes pink behind his sketchpad is any indication. Mark's insanely curious to know what Jack finds so fascinating about him, enough to want Mark to model for him, but he's not about to ask. He'll just have to wait until Jack is done and he'll see it in the drawing. More than once Mark catches his eyelids drooping, and he has to convince himself not to fall asleep. After about twenty minutes, Jack stands and says, "You can move now."

Mark rolls onto his back on the bed and stretches languorously, letting out a small humming sound. He looks over as Jack approaches the bed. "Can I see it?"

"Oh," Jack says, instantly clutching the sketchpad in his hands to his chest. "I don't know if--"

"What, you'll beg me to model but I can't even see it?" Mark teases. He leans over to poke Jack in the ribs. 

Jack yelps and jerks away, slapping his hand at Mark's. "Stop that," Jack laughs. "I just don't usually show people what I draw. Landscapes are different. They're open and beautiful and peaceful. People are... intimate. It's like showin' my opinion of a person on paper."

Mark nods, hiding his disappointment with a smile. "I get it. Wanna do another one?"

"Yes," Jack enthuses, and moves to grabs the pillows from the head of the bed. "Come sit over here." When Mark scoots over and does as he's told, Jack finagles him to sit the way he wants and then puts a hand on his shoulder, making Mark recline back into the headboard. Jack stuffs a pillow behind his back and adjusts him to face the sunlight and then puts the second pillow at the foot of the bed. Coming back to Mark, Jack kneels on the bed and takes his hands, slinging one arm above his head to rest palm-up. He takes the other and places it to sit casually at his hip, his thumb at the waistband of his sweatpants where his shirt has eased up an inch. Jack leaves one leg to lay flat and raises the other, planting his bare foot flat on the bed, and turning his body just slightly to face Jack.

As Jack gets himself ready, Mark watches him again. He lets his eyes focus on Jack's ass when he bends, and is unabashed when Jack catches him staring. "Good view," is all Mark tells him.

Jack flushes hard enough that his ears go red, and he grunts, "Watch yourself, buddy." He sits again, and since Jack gives him no direction to look in as Jack begins drawing, Mark just looks at him.

Similarly to the first time, Mark feels his body's response to Jack's attention, but in this position--and with unforgivingly loose sweatpants and no underwear (what a great decision)--it's blatantly obvious. The third time Jack looks up his eyes dart to Mark's crotch and his face gets red again.

"Sorry," Mark offers, a bit embarrassed. "I'm pushing every internal stop button I have, promise."

Jack smiles softly as he continues sketching, his eyes ticking back and forth between the pad and Mark. "Well, I hate to tell you but it ain't workin'."

Mark laughs shortly. "Yeah, I figured out that much." He falls silent, staring at Jack. He knows that won't help him calm down but Mark knows it's a lost cause to begin with. Jack doesn't seem terribly bothered by it, anyway, so there's that.

The beam of sunlight from the window has changed position considerably from its beginning point, warming Mark's legs and his bare toes with its light but not much else. Jack is resolute, eyes focused and intent as they skim over the curve of Mark's hip, the straight line of his leg, his jaw, the flippant errancy of his hair. At some point Jack comes to his face, staring and absorbing its details with his eyes. Mark holds his gaze when their eyes meet and Jack hesitates indefinitely, pencil poised but unmoving. 

"Jack," Mark whispers, disrupting the stillness of the room and the artist jumps slightly. "I have a specific request."

"What is it?" Jack asks, quiet.

"Draw me like one of your French girls, Jack," Mark says, straight-faced, his chest and stomach shaking with unshed laughter.

Jack groans, throwing an eraser at him. "You absolute fockin' douche," he chuckles. "If you wanted to pose naked you just had to ask," he adds, wiggling his eyebrows.

Mark grins widely, conniving, and Jack's smile falters noticeably. "Well then. Are you done?" Mark asks. "This sketch."

"I--yes," Jack says hesitantly. He's obviously wary now.

Mark sits up with another stretch, covering his yawn and standing. Without a word he strips out of his tank top, tossing it onto the bed, and goes to shuck his sweatpants off when Jack shrieks, "Oh my God, stop!" 

Turning, Mark sees Jack standing a few feet behind him, hands covering his face with two fingers scissored apart to peek through. "What?" Mark asks innocently, basking in the way Jack can't seem to stop his gaze from running all over Mark's body.

"You're gettin' naked, you fockin' dunce, that's what!" Jack snaps, moving his hands away to gesture at Mark's naked chest. 

"But don't you want to do a nude study?" Mark asks him wickedly. He slides his pants down to sit extremely low on his hips. Borderline obscene. Mark feels a thousand feet tall at the way Jack's eyes slither down his body.

Jack's mouth hangs open, then he clamps it shut and glares at Mark. "You demon," he accuses. "Quit tryin' to seduce me through modellin' your stupidly sexy body around."

Mark shrugs a bare shoulder, facing away from Jack and bringing his arms up to flex them, and his back muscles. He glances back and sees Jack staring keenly at him, eyes wide and lips parted. "If you don't want me to lay here, all naked and pliant," Mark says carelessly, "then I guess I'll just head to bed."

Jack schools his expression into one devoid of lust. "Why do you even want to?" Jack wonders, and Mark turns back to him. "I would love to do a nude," he admits, "but... with what we have goin' on between us, is it really such a good idea?"

Reality strikes again. "Right," Mark says, nodding. He tugs his waistband up and grabs his shirt and pulls it back on, feeling a little trashy and a lot stupid. Why can't he get it through his thick skull that Jack isn't looking for anything? The more Mark flirts, the more awkward he makes their relationship. "You're right. I'm... I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sorry." Mark gives him a smile and a half-shrug. "I could be a bit sun-addled," he jests, but he doesn't find it very funny and by the look on Jack's face, neither does he.

Jack sighs, coming to Mark and putting his hands on his shoulders. "Thank you for modellin' for me," he murmurs. "I really appreciate it. And, if you don't mind, I'd like your permission to sketch you whenever. If that's okay."

Mark smiles at him. "Of course," he tells Jack, stepping away. "But I'm pretty tired, so I think I'll call it a night."

"Sure," Jack says easily, returning his smile. Mark doesn't believe for a second that Jack doesn't know Mark is running from him, fleeing the stupidity of his actions. But he doesn't show it, and for that Mark is grateful. "Goodnight, Mark."

"'Night, Jack," Mark says lowly, wrenching his eyes away from Jack's sky blue ones.

Mark exits into the hall and shuts his bedroom door behind him, getting into bed and kicking off his sweatpants. Immediately his hand is on his cock, still hard and still in dire need of ministration. Honestly with Jack across the hall it only makes him harder, as opposed to giving him a healthy dose of fear and trepidation to masturbate. 

At first Mark goes slow, teasing himself and touching lightly as he strokes. His second hand he uses to caress up his chest, fingertips like feathers on his skin and he shivers. He squeezes his dick, jerking his hand a little faster before slowing down again and sighing. Mark's other hand smoothes down his stomach to scratch at the hairs on his lower stomach then back up to drag his nails across his abdomen. He inhales at the sensation, his hand speeding up again without his consent. 

Mark turns his face into the pillow when his cock throbs eagerly, huffing out a small laugh at himself. He's so incredibly turned on just from teasing Jack and having Jack's eyes on him. So easily brought up to a fever pitch from the mere mention of Jack seeing him naked. Just remembering the conversation makes Mark's skin flame, his chest and face warming and intensifying his sensitivity. He clenches his hand in the bedding at his hip, his legs shaking with the force and intent of his touches.

Left hand wandering to his pecs, Mark takes a nipple between his fingers and rolls the nub, tweaking and gingerly pulling. His breath whooshes out and Mark shoves his pillow over his face to muffle the gasping moans that pass his lips as he starts to buck his hips wildly into his hand, stripping his cock swiftly and surely. He can't stop--can't stop his hips or his hand or the throaty sounds he's making into the pillow.

His pumping hand grows uncontrolled, Mark sensing his climax is close. He bites his lip red as he chases his orgasm and with a breathy groan he spills over his hand and onto his sheets.

Once he's come back down Mark cleans his sheets and himself up with a tissue from the box on his nightstand and flops back into his pillow. Now at least he feels sated on a basic level. But he knows mind-blowing sex waits across the hall, held by the one person in the county--in the state--who Mark wants, and, well... Jack isn't exactly applying for the position.

_Just go to sleep,_ Mark think to himself tiredly as he rolls over. _It'll all be just as futile tomorrow morning._

 

Saturday morning, Mark is up at the godawful hour of four a.m. and he makes his miserable way downstairs to start coffee. After refilling Chica's bowls and giving her a halfhearted rub behind the ears he leans forward onto the counter, head hung. Looming before him is his first market without Wade. Admittedly he has Jack, who's been very useful the past few days in helping to prepare for it. He's helped with picking, sorting, washing, bundling, and even spent some time weeding and tearing up grass with Mark in the newly addressed pasture. Jack compliments him frequently on the completed fence, likely buttering him up for some request to go somewhere or do something.

As much as Mark's been working, he's also been spending a lot of time with Jack, eating at places in town, going to the small local theatre, wasting time in the sun. They lounge around the house together at the end of Mark's day, sharing what he accomplished and lightly bitching about his grievances. Likewise Jack shows him any non-Mark paintings and sketches Jack has done in the day, and Mark lavishes him with praise. Jack always colours prettily, always says thank you, and usually gives Mark a longing look from beneath his lashes. 

Jack's come to work with him a couple days, too. He brings his art stuff with him and whenever he wants to stop whatever they're doing he just starts painting or drawing a sketch. Mark knows he's usually the subject of Jack's attention during one of these moments, but he just carries on working. He never says anything and never asks to see the drawings. 

Despite spending a lot of time with Jack over the week, Mark knows it's surface value only. Jack has told him stories from home, shared things about himself, but nothing incredibly personal. Likewise Mark has been keeping his feelings at arm's length and barely flirts with Jack anymore. He tries not to let his hands touch randomly, tries not to get into topics too personal. Because nine times out of ten when he does flirt or touch or breach a personal subject, Jack backs up in the other direction. To Mark it seems like Jack is hesitant with him after the evening modelling session in his room, because even a shoulder pat or a hug seem to be cause for alarm.

_Couldn't have fucked this up any more effectively,_ Mark grouches to himself bitterly.

Surprisingly Mark hears movement upstairs as the coffee machine percolates. He meanders to the stairs and listens, and sure enough there's noise coming from Jack's room. Moments later the door opens and his tenant stumbles from the room, fully dressed and coming down the stairs blearily. He sees Mark and pauses a step from the bottom.

"What are you doing up so early?" Mark asks him quietly. "Go back to bed, the market isn't for another three hours at least."

Jack comes down the remaining stair, resting his hand tiredly on Mark's chest when he reaches him. Mark can't contain his shock at the small gesture, stiffening from head to toe. "I have committed to this bullshit," Jack grunts with about as much conviction as a fish in a shark tank. "And I've got two paintin's I didn't finish. So, up at the asscrack of dawn it is."

Pleasantly ignoring his own mind warning him not to flirt, Mark lifts a hand to lie over Jack's. Jack doesn't pull away immediately. "I'm sorry," he tells Jack. "You've said before you're not cut out to be a farmer. Not sure why you keep trying though."

"M'not a goddamn farmer," Jack mumbles sleepily. "I'm a painter. We just happen to have common goals, by which I mean you own a farm that goes to market every Saturday and I agreed to go with you. Like a jackass."

Mark rubs his thumb over the back of Jack's hand, and then the Irishman does pull away, but not harshly. Mark is grateful that Jack let him touch him at all. "You're welcome to stay home. I can take your paintings with me and bring you back your money."

"That's not fair to you," Jack says, sighing. "I'm just blubberin' so I don't have to think about how early it is."

"Coffee should be ready," Mark says, and Jack looks at him hopefully. "Yeah, there you go. C'mon." Mark turns down the hall and the two make their way to the kitchen.

Jack kneels on the kitchen floor to give Chica scratches while Mark takes down two mugs and fills them both with coffee. He adds cream and sugar to Jack's and leaves his own black. Mark allows himself an unmitigated ten seconds to stand and watch Jack talk to Chica, cooing at her and talking nonsense, then he pushes himself away from the counter, grabs their mugs and walks to Jack. He offers the cup in his left hand as the foreigner stands. 

Taking the mug Jack sips its contents. "Mmm," he sighs, pleased. "May nothing keep us apart from this moment on, my rich brown mistress." 

Snorting, Mark gives him an amused look. "Don't let me disturb you two. I've got stuff to wash and sort yet, so I'll be out back if you need me." Mark walks to turn on the back porch light and unlock the back door, opening it and waving over his shoulder as he goes.

Mark spends the first couple hours of the barely lit morning washing the remaining potatoes, carrots and beans that he didn't get to the night before. Once washed he sorts them out into what he sells, the majority, and then the meagre pile of uglier but still perfectly fine vegetables that he keeps for the house. He's bundling carrots together when the sun finally decides to show itself over the horizon to the rear of the farm. Mark finishes sheafing vegetables and loads his cargo into the flatbed of his truck, already mostly full of other vegetables and fruits. The produce that require containers or bags as opposed to just a band of twine or an elastic, such as berries or potatoes, are done last. Mark is bagging his last stack of potatoes when Jack comes out to see him, slightly smudged with various colours in various places all over his person.

"Gettin' about time to be goin'," Jack says, coming to help him load the boxes of filled paper bags into the truck bed. 

Mark checks his watch and nods. "You're right. Are you ready to go?"

"Just finished my second paintin'," Jack replies with a smile. "I'll go grab what I'm goin' to sell, just a sec." He darts back to the house. Mark watches him go, then finishes loading up the truck.

The drive there is quiet, with Jack in the passenger seat cradling his two newly completed paintings gingerly in his lap since they're still a little wet. Mark drives carefully so he doesn't jostle them around on the back roads on the way into town. It takes them longer because of that, and it's clear they're the last ones to arrive when they get there. Mark backs up to the stall and parks, then gets out and hurries to Jack's door to help him down with his delicate cargo.

Jack gives him a gentle smile when his feet touch terra firma. "Thanks." Mark's body thrills when Jack doesn't reject his touch for the second time.

While Jack sets out his paintings--leaving the two wet ones in the truck to dry a bit more--Mark takes a few of each vegetable and fruit and places them in groups on the stall. The bundles, bags and cartons of produce are various different prices but Mark also brings with him a beautiful hand-painted sign--thanks to Jack--that lists everything Mark has for sale, along with its cost per unit. Before the sign, Mark stickered them by hand, writing the prices individually.

Before he's even finished setting up Mrs. Collins approaches the stall, hobbling along with her cane. "Mark, Jack, dears, how are you both doing?" Mrs. Collins asks pleasantly.

Mark smiles at her. "Hi, Mrs. Collins. I'm doing alright."

"I'm just fine," Jack says, coming to stand beside Mark. "How have you been?"

Mrs. Collins presses a lean liver-spotted hand to her chest. "Oh, well I had a bit of a fall this past Tuesday but everything is alright. Just a little boo-boo."

"A fall?" Mark exclaims. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yes, yes, I'm perfectly fine." Mrs. Collins waves away Jack and Mark's concerned expressions. "Stop your worrying, boys. You'll make me blush, which at my age is just unacceptable."

Jack grins. "Yes, ma'am." 

Mrs. Collins peers around, then says inquisitively, "Where's Wade gone off to?"

Mark smirks widely. "Off to Cincinnati to propose to Molly. Finally."

"Oh, good for him!" Mrs. Collins shrills excitedly. "About time, too."

Jack bares his teeth in a cheeky smile. "Our sentiments exactly. What can we get you today?"

Mrs. Collins peruses the stall, giving Jack's paintings as keen a study as Mark's food. She murmurs, pointing at a carton of strawberries and a bushel of sweet potatoes, then leans forward to closely examine a painting at the left side of the stall. Mark can see Jack nearly bursting out of his skin with underlying excitement.

"Jack, come here," she beckons, and instantly Jack hastens to her. "What does this one mean? What were you thinking of when you painted it?"

Curious, Mark peeks at the painting in question. It's one of Jack's self-proclaimed "goofball hunks of shite," or as Mark fondly refers to them collectively, the Outliers. This piece is on a small canvas, only twelve by twelve inches, but the attention to detail is remarkable. It's a red relief of the farmhouse, bathed in a sunset and awash with a crimson glow. The house itself is impeccably true to the original, down to the nicks in the siding by the kitchen window. The entirety of the picture should be archaic or dark, but the tones of light reds, pale pinks and magentas all come together to make for a beautiful display of soft scarlet tones. Instead of being harsh with the use of only one colour, it shows the expanse of feeling one could have for such a simple thing.

"This one, I was thinkin' of home," Jack tells Mrs. Collins, smiling.

"Home," she ponders, studying it again. "But this is Mark's house, isn't it? Does it remind you of your own home, back in Ireland?"

"Yes and no," Jack chuckles. "While I miss Ireland, I like it better here than I ever did there. For one, in California there's a bit of fockin' sunshine once in a while."

Mrs. Collins giggles, patting Jack's arm. "Yes, more sun than we know what to do with, most days. So," she says slyly, and Mark watches her look turn predatory, uncannily amping up in nosiness levels. "You find Mark's house to be home, then, do you?"

Jack turns pink. "Uh, in a way, I suppose," he hedges. "Mark has been very kind to me."

Mrs. Collins turns her eyes on Mark, flaying him to the bone with her piercing gaze. "Mark is a very kind man," she agrees. "And brave, gentle, charming, a hard worker, always willing to lend a hand, and--"

"Come on, Mrs. Collins," Mark says, cutting off her matchmaking spiel. "Jack is a happily single man." When she turns on him, frowning, Mark shrugs. 

"If I didn't know any better, I'd swear you were trying to hide something from me, Mark Fischbach," Mrs. Collins says coolly, her eyes narrowed. There's a twinkle in her clear brown eyes, though. "Hiding some feelings perhaps?"

"Nothing of the sort," Mark says easily, with a smile. "We're just close friends." When Mrs. Collins turns her sharp gaze on Jack, Mark adds, "Is there anything else I can get you?"

Huffing, the old woman points to the red-hued painting. "I'll take that as well, and some yellow beans." 

Mark and Jack rush to comply, Mark taking all her produce and putting it into a large brown paper bag, and Jack wraps her painting in thin white paper before taping it off. Mrs. Collins counts out her money, hands it to Mark and takes her bag and wrapped canvas. 

They say their goodbyes and with a hearty stare she hobbles off. As soon as Mrs. Collins is gone, Jack shrieks and jumps on a surprised Mark, hugging him before stepping back and bouncing in place. "She bought another painting!" he says excitedly. "She's bought two now. That's so crazy." Jack laughs but it sounds nervous.

Mark puts a hand on his shoulder, although it's closer to the crook of Jack's neck than it is to his actual shoulder. His mind warns him to watch what his hands do, but he shoves the thought aside. "One of many for the day, I'll bet," Mark says encouragingly. "You're very talented, Jack. People here can see that."

Jack smiles at him softly. "You keep sayin' that, but I'm still findin' it hard to believe." He runs a hand through his hair, mussing it beautifully over his forehead. He accepts the money Mark hands him, his share from the sale. "I just can't believe it."

"You've got something going for you here," Mark says after a moment, tentative. "You're incredibly friendly, and you take to every kind of person without discretion. People in town like you. Wade likes you. I like you." Mark pauses, unsure if he should continue, but someone approaching the stall interrupts whatever he may or may not have said next.

For the next few hours the two work in amiable quiet, occasionally saying something offhandedly or engaging a customer in casual conversation. Jack sells every painting including the two that had to finish drying, and each time one sells he comes to Mark for a hug. Each time Mark feels his heart swell with feeling, but he just smiles and gives Jack a pat on the back or ruffles his hair and offers congratulations.

Gertrude, the diner owner in town, comes up to the empty stall as Mark and Jack are packing things up and cleaning. Mark's head lifts when he hears footsteps. "Gertrude," he says with surprise. "Hey. I don't think I've got anything left for you. We've sold out."

She waves her hand flippantly. "Nah, I'm still good from what I got last week." She casts a look between the two of them as Jack straightens from gathering the plant debris around his feet. "Jack, good seeing you again, son. You look well. This meathead taking good care of you?"

Jack grins when Mark throws an arm around him and squeezes. "I'm still kickin', so he hasn't failed me yet," Jack jibes, pinching at Mark's chest. Mark yelps and pokes Jack in the side, and Jack dances away with a laugh. "How're you, Gertrude?" Jack asks her.

Her beady eyes take in the men before her, and then she grins devilishly. "Just fine, thanks. I heard Wade's going to tie the knot with Molly? Good thing, that. They're a good pair." Mark becomes wary when Gertrude peers at the two of them shrewishly. "You two get up to anything... exciting this past week?"

The way she says it insinuates that they've found excitement with each other, and Mark feels his face flame. Similarly Jack's face has reddened. "Nope," Mark says for both of them. "Just holding down the fort and picking up the slack Wade left."

"I'm having a shindig this coming Thursday, at the diner," Gertrude tells them, smiling. She hands them a flyer printed on blue-coloured paper. "An end-of-summer party, I guess. Samantha--you remember her, don't you? Pretty little blonde a few years behind you in school, a sweet girl with a whole whack of freckles, she's a new waitress at the diner, you know, she's doing so good--well, she recommended it and I just loved the idea." Her smile turns sickly sweet. "It's a couple's kind of thing, so bring a date!" With that and a wave, Gertrude is gone.

Both of them are silent. Then, "It's official," Jack says dismally, shoulders sagging. "Everyone in this town wants us to date."

Mark shrugs it off despite the clutching of his throat. "Don't worry about them. We can both go stag, it's not a big deal. Gertrude herself is single, and I haven't ever seen her date. She's already breaking her own rule." At Jack's imploring look, Mark adds, "Honestly, it's not a problem. You don't even have to go if you don't want to."

"That just seems rude," Jack murmurs. He side-eyes Mark. "You... you don't have to go alone, for my sake. You could ask someone."

"Meh," Mark says, turning and slamming the tailgate up to lock into place. "I'm not that interested in anyone in town. Grew up with everybody here, and if I didn't then they're married." He chuckles. "Small towns."

Jack is silent. Sensing the decrease in his mood Mark lets him be. He's unsure if it was something he said that did it, or whether Jack is lost in his own thoughts. Mark quickly checks the area and, seeing that it's clean, he beckons Jack wordlessly to get in the truck.

They're home, sitting in the living room with a cup of coffee apiece and Chica between them on the couch before Jack speaks again. Mark flips through the channels on the TV aimlessly, scratching Chica with his free hand.

"Do you like me because I'm not from around here?" Jack blurts into the semi-silence, staring ahead at the TV and not even facing Mark.

Mark looks over at him with shock, his remote hand lowering. "I'm not sure I understand the question," Mark says slowly, studying him. "Are you asking if I specifically like you because you're not from here?"

Jack nods quickly but doesn't turn to look at him.

"Okay," Mark says. He sets down the remote on the coffee table and rotates himself to face Jack. "Let me be crystal clear: the only reasons I like you are because of you as a person. You just so happen to be from a different place." Mark pauses, waiting for Jack to speak, but he doesn't. Mark frowns. "Is this because of what I said at the market, about Gertrude's party?"

The Irishman lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug, his expression bitter. Jack's posture screams discomfort. How tired Mark is of seeing that as a default emotion on the man, after all the progress he thought they'd made. 

Mark scowls now, standing from his seat. "Obviously you've made up your mind on the matter. To be honest I don't even know why you'd care in the first place." Mark leaves the room, taking his nearly-full coffee out to the back porch. Afternoon sun beats down on the farm, feeding the plants and warming the soil. The scene is gorgeously and uncharacteristically calm for midday, Mark having given all the farmhands a day off. 

Kind, brave, gentle, charming, hard-working. Mark scoffs to himself. Undateable, more like. With all the evidence against him, Mark is finding it harder and harder to deny that he's the problem in his string of failed or not-started relationships. Even someone who's said they want him can't overcome their issues to want to be with him. But how is that fair of him to compare? Jack is going through some tough shit. He ran away from home to escape his situation, and Mark is going to judge him for not wanting to date his sorry ass?

_Yes, very kind and gentle of me,_ Mark thinks sourly. He drinks his coffee while he watches the fields, mentally flagellating himself for being a big whiny baby bitch. But he's not about to go back in the house with Jack and his dark mood. Because he doesn't trust anything that Mark tells him.

_Stop it,_ Mark tells himself, chugging the remainder of his coffee and leaving the mug on the porch railing. He makes his way down the steps and moves without a destination. He hadn't allotted himself much time to actually work today. He had been hoping he could spend the day with Jack.

So much for that.

He opens the shed door and plops into a Gator after lifting a set of keys from the key rack on the wall. Mark drives, not knowing where he's going until he comes across the pond on his left, the water's surface sparkling in the bright sunlight. He pulls to the side of the dirt road and parks the vehicle, climbing out and unbuttoning his flannel shirt as he goes. Once undone he tosses his shirt to the ground and unlaces his boots, pulling them off and setting them next to his shirt.

Mark undresses to his underwear, even removing his tank top and socks, and without further ado he bolts off the end of the short dock, jumps and plunges beneath the liquid abyss.

It's perfect, not frigid at all--just warm enough to match his body temperature. He floats under the surface until his lungs beg for air, and only then does Mark breach and take in deep gulping breaths. He drifts on the water for a short while, looking up at the leaves over his head. The serenity of the location, of the moment, sinks into Mark comfortingly and soothes his scattered mind. He doesn't let himself think about Jack, not even once.

When he tires of basking in the dappled sunshine Mark swims laps, back and forth from the dock to the grassy bank opposing it. Because he's bored he alternates between a backstroke, butterfly and breast stroke. The breast stroke and backstroke are easy, and Mark isn't sore from them but the butterfly he finds harder; the rotation really kills his shoulders. After laps he lets himself suspend in the water, nearly lifeless from lack of movement and brain activity. He's sure he dozes there, for a little bit. 

Mark climbs out onto the dock once he's had his fill, shaking his wet hair like a dog and smoothing it back from his face with wrinkled fingers. Glancing up he sees that the sun is halfway through its descent to the horizon. He's been here for hours.

After dressing and getting back into the Gator, Mark makes his way back to the house. He's damp in every nook and cranny that his body has and he's hungry, but he's content. He parks the Gator, locks up the shed and walks to the house.

He enters the kitchen and Jack is there, eating some kind of pasta dish at the table with Chica at his feet. Mark keeps his expression somewhere between neutral and friendly, smiling at Jack when he looks up. Jack hurriedly looks back down at his plate, his face pink.

Seeing he won't get any kind of welcome, Mark moves to the fridge and opens it, takes out a meal replacement shake and shuts it again. He's not in the mood to cook, and he's definitely not in the mood to try and entertain Jack when it's obvious he'd prefer staring a lion in the eye than even look at Mark's face. He takes his "meal" and goes upstairs to shower.

He's reading in bed an hour and half later when Mark is interrupted by a knock on his door. Without waiting for a response Jack opens the door and pokes his head in. Mark contains his annoyance and says without inflection, "Yes?"

Jack slips into the room and lingers by the door. "I wanted to say sorry, for earlier," Jack says softly, peering at him. "I ask you questions and then keep gettin' an attitude when I get an answer, no matter what it is."

With a sigh Mark sits up and swings his legs out of bed, setting his annoyance aside along with his book. "It's okay, I know why you thought what you did. Considering what I've told you about my past romantic exploits, it did sound bad that I practically jumped at the first new person to come along."

"I know that's not what you were doin', though," Jack says quickly. "I immediately ought to've known better. You're not that guy."

"No," Mark chuckles, "I'm not." He gets to his feet and eyes Jack across the room, pensive and hopeful at the way Jack is looking back. "It's safe to say that my feelings for you are pretty obvious, though. Does that make you uncomfortable?" _Please say no, please say no,_ Mark thinks desperately.

Jack glances at the floor, then back up at Mark. "I don't hate it," he murmurs. 

Mark can't contain the wide grin that splits his lips. "Great," he says with obvious relief. "I mean, yeah. That's--that's great." He must look stupid, the way he's grinning, but he's beyond caring. Jack isn't repelled by him or his feelings and he thinks Mark is attractive. That's definitely something to be happy about.

Shyly Jack ducks his head. His hands fidget in front of him, fingers nimble and unsure as he continues to stare at Mark. "I was wonderin'," begins Jack, "whether you'd like to sit for me again."

On a list of bad decisions, modelling for Jack again would probably be somewhere in the top five. But that doesn't mean it's not something that Mark will withstand to make Jack happy, and he's never been one for emotional self-preservation anyway. "You bet," he tells Jack, and watches the slow smile spread on his face.

Jack leads the way across the hall to his room where he repeats his set-up process, stealing the chair from Mark's room again after adjusting the position of the bed. Since there's no sunlight to utilize, Jack also steals a lamp from Wade's room. He places his drawing stuff on the chair and eagerly pulls Mark to the bed.

This time Mark is arranged into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, bent over his lap slightly with his elbows resting on his parted knees and his hands hanging between them. Jack examines him briefly before he requests, "Take off your shirt."

Mark gives him a slightly incredulous look. "Did I just hear you right?"

"For--for the sketch," Jack says quickly and lifts his hands palms out. "I didn't--You don't have to."

Well, what could it hurt? It's not like Jack is in any danger of suddenly jumping Mark's bones, and Mark himself has a tight leash on his emotions and urges by now (or so he'd like to think). Not that him being half nude will help either of them in the slightest. Still, he does as he's told and removes his shirt, tosses it towards the chair and then resumes his pose. He smiles through the spike of arousal coursing through him when Jack can't seem to stop staring.

"Um, right," Jack says jerkily, snapping himself out of his trance, then hurries to the chair to sit. Same as before he sets his pad on his legs and gets comfortable. Once he's situated he begins sketching almost immediately and Mark focuses on staying still, instead of letting his eyes wander all over his roommate.

But he can't help it, and after about fifteen minutes Mark caves and looks at Jack. His expression is intent and serious, his eyes bright as they caress Mark's skin. Mark watches him, watches the way his hands twiddle the pencil in his fingers like a drumstick when he pauses in his movements on the page. In the artificial light he sees the way Jack's cheeks flush when his gaze slides along Mark's body. Mark feels his gaze as if it was a physical thing, something tangible and real.

When Jack's face reddens even more Mark flexes his arms, then grins when the artists gasps softly. Jack scowls at him. "Quit that," he mumbles. "I'm havin' a rough time as it is here."

"Am I a bad model?" Mark teases, relaxing again.

"The worst," Jack agrees with a chuckle. "Now stay still, I'm almost finished."

Obediently Mark doesn't move while Jack draws him, but he doesn't stop watching him. He doubts he could if he tried. Jack scratches at his neck when he pauses next, and his left hand--his smudging hand--leaves a dark smear of graphite on the pale skin there. Mark wouldn't use the word "obsess", but he definitely pays some serious attention to it.

"Done," Jack says, stretching and yawning. He sets aside his sketchpad and stands.

Doing his best to not stare, Mark sits upright and stretches his arms up over his head with a groan. "How's it look?" he asks. It's a formality by now, to ask what any of the drawings look like--Mark knows he'll never see anything Jack draws of him.

Jack shrugs a shoulder, spreading more graphite on his right forearm with blackened fingertips. "I think it looks alright. Might've needed more detail in the face, maybe."

Mark watches Jack fidget, more and more by the second. "Okay, spill. What is it?"

"Ehm," Jack starts, glancing at Mark before quickly looking away. "I--I want... Would you d--No, no it's stupid. Forget it." He starts gathering his things up, clearly in a rush to escape.

"Jack," Mark says gently and the Irishman pauses, looking uneasy. "Just tell me. You know I won't get mad, right? You can ask me anything."

Sighing hard through his nose Jack stares down at the floor. His arms hang loosely at his sides. "Would you do a nude pose for me?" he asks, so quiet that Mark has to strain his ears to hear him.

Against his will Mark flushes deeply. "Yes," he says instantly, because he really has no sense of self-preservation. Jack looks up at him sharply, his eyes wide with surprise. "You thought I'd say no?"

"Well, yeah," Jack laughs nervously. "It's such a stupid thing to ask someone, to get naked and sit still so I can stare at them and draw them in minute detail." His fingers fiddle with the bands on his wrist.

Mark's body reacts predictably to those words, his stomach stirring with feeling and his dick throbbing in the confines of his pants. If he hadn't been on board before, he would've been now. "Are you kidding? I'm practically looking for excuses to get naked and flaunt," Mark says, amused. And he's not really exaggerating. Mark enjoys his body ninety-five percent of the time, likes the way he looks and the way people react when they see him.

Jack scoffs. His cheeks redden as he looks at Mark again. "Of course, how could I forget," he chortles.

Rather than just stripping like last time, Mark hazards, "Should I...?" He gets to his feet and gestures to his pants.

For a second Jack is seemingly startled into silence. After a long moment he grunts to the room, "I need a goddamn drink," and heads to his short dresser where he pulls a bottle of whiskey from one of the drawers. It's unopened. He twists the cap off and tosses it onto the dresser, then chugs directly from the bottle.

"Uh," Mark says at length. 

Tipping the bottle back down and hissing after he swallows, Jack looks sheepish. "Sorry," he says in a half-mumble, "I don't think I can do this sober."

Ah, what the hell. "Likewise," Mark says and holds out his hand. Jack hands him the bottle and he takes a few generous mouthfuls, gasping at the burn. Being drunk will certainly help him in being able to keep his dick down, at least. 

When he hands it back, Jack gives him a grateful look. "Thanks," he murmurs, "for not bein' weird about this. And not makin' fun of me. And drinkin' with me."

Mark chuckles. "You're making it sound like I wouldn't do these things normally."

"I know, I know," Jack says, sighing. He takes another long drink. "I just... I don't want anythin' to ruin our friendship. And I feel like this might."

"You're the one in charge," Mark tells him. Jack looks over at him pensively. "I mean it. You make all the moves from now on. I'll respond to whatever you do. If you want space, you got it. If you want fifty hugs in one day, no problem." _I may suffer,_ Mark muses, _but I'll do it._

Jack smiles, looking at his feet. "You're too good to me, y'know."

Mark gives him a soft, smouldering look. "Yes, I am. But I think you like being spoiled, just a little bit." When he sees Jack smile wider but stay silent, he adds, "Is it so hard to admit that you like it when I do things for you?"

"Yes," Jack whispers, drinking. "It's not somethin' I'm used to. Honestly, I'm... You confuse me. Why would you do all these things for me?"

Why, indeed? But Mark knows, and he thinks he's known since he set eyes on the man before him. "I doubt I have to spell it out for you," Mark says quietly, holding his gaze. 

"Do it anyway," Jack says, just as quiet. He doesn't look away.

Mark swallows and suddenly he feels the stark nakedness of his chest. He feels a little too bare, like the exposure of his body translates to the exposure of his soul. His heartbeat doubles and he feels it thumping in his chest and at his throat, pounding under his skin like a drum beat. But he still says, "I think I love you."

Jack freezes, standing so still that Mark wants to reach out and shake him. He stares across the room at nothing, does nothing. He doesn't speak, neither of them do, and Mark smothers his insane desire to scream, "Say something!" He just stands there, waiting. Waiting.

Finally Jack turns back to him. "Okay," he says thickly. Then he drinks some more from the bottle clutched tightly in his trembling fist.

_Well, I guess that's all I get,_ Mark thinks bleakly. He doesn't know what he was expecting. He knew Jack's feelings didn't run as deep, and he even knows why. Jack isn't in a spot that he can trust anyone with his heart. And yet, Mark is still trying to give him his. So Mark supposes that it's really only his fault, here. He didn't have to say it, after all. He could've deflected, could've said something less revealing. But he didn't. He said the words, and now he can't take them back. Wordlessly he holds out his hand for the whiskey, and Jack gives it to him. He chugs mouthful after mouthful, then grits his teeth against the sear of alcohol on his tongue as he swallows.

They stand in silence, passing the bottle between them and drinking. When it's almost half empty Jack sets it on the dresser, with some difficulty. "I think we may have ov'rdone it," he mutters, rubbing at his face.

Mark feels the smudge around his brain like a cottony vice. He's way past the point of 'a couple drinks to take the edge off'. He's fucking hammered. "I think you're right," Mark replies, easing himself into a sitting position on the bed. "Can ya still... y'know, draw and shit."

Jack lifts his hands and studies them, flexes them. "Maybe?" he says uncertainly. "We can give 'er a try, anyway." He half-walks, half-stumbles his way back to his chair, setting himself up again with much less finesse and success than before.

"Is this still a nude thing?" Mark asks, and he notes the ease with which he can say that, though he still feels his face flame.

Jack nods, his cheeks pink and his eyes avoiding Mark. "Yes, if ye don't mind."

Instead of replying Mark just nods back, shimmying out of his pants and underwear while still sitting on the bed. He manages it alright, drunk and uncoordinated as he is, and discards the clothing at the foot of the bed on the floor. As an afterthought he remembers to take off his socks as well. Now very naked as well as very drunk, Mark looks back to Jack who's sitting in his chair, sketch pad at the ready and his bundle of pencils in his lap. He looks up at Mark and his face turns beet red, but he doesn't stop looking.

"How should I...?" Mark asks, staring back. He motions to himself and then the bed in an 'I don't know how you want me to pose' kind of way.

Jack visibly swallows, then points to the pillows. "Maybe, em, lay back a bit. An' leave yer legs straight on the bed." Mark does as he says, shuffling down to lay normally in the bed with his head at the pillows and his legs laying flat. "Good, uh, good. Now kinda turn towards me." Mark does, and Jack swallows again. "Lay yer head on yer arm, and let the other hand sorta rest on yer thigh." Again Mark does as he's told and Jack sighs out a long breath. "Tha's great. Jus' like that."

Mark is drunk enough that he's a definite driving risk, but unfortunately he's not drunk enough for his body to get the memo. He's hard, almost painfully so, and he's hot from head to toe with the way Jack is already studying his body. 

But Jack focuses on his drawing even as his eyes linger more and more with each glance. Mark, given no direction to look in, fixates on Jack as usual. He knows there's no willing his erection away this time as much as he might try, so he throws his regular caution to the wind and lets himself look, lets his uninhibited imagination run wild. Jack coming onto him in the fields as they work. Jack planting a kiss on him in public while they're out for a meal or on a date. Snuggling with Jack in front of a movie late at night, sharing popcorn and a blanket. Having sweaty, disastrously good sex in every room in the house. He particularly likes that last one.

Time ticks by and Mark daydreams as Jack draws him. His hands itch to touch but even plastered, Mark knows better. Jack barely trusts him as a friend, and he's not keen on jeopardizing what headway he's made so far by getting handsy. 

Jack makes a soft sound, somewhere between a groan and a gasp, and Mark focuses on him again. He's got a hand pressed to his groin, his mouth opened in a small "O" and his sketch completely forgotten on his lap. Jack glances up and sees Mark watching him, quickly removing his hand.

"Are you hard?" Mark asks, because his filter is long gone.

Jack bites his lip and Mark feels his cock twitch. "Yeah," Jack admits. "Ridiculously so." He looks away. "I've, uh, finished. Ye can get dressed." He sets his supplies aside a little clumsily and stands. Mark notices (looks for) the sizeable bump in the front of his pants. He lets himself ogle Jack for a moment before he sits up, stretching hugely and grinning at the way he attracts Jack's gaze.

"Narcissist," Jack accuses but there's no bite in the words. Mark smirks and reaches for his clothes, slipping back into them. 

"Mhm, I can really see ya hate my looks," Mark says with a pointed look at Jack's crotch. He walks to where his shirt lies, near Jack's chair, and picks it up. As he puts it back on he adds, "Not that I mind at all."

Jack's looking at him when he pokes his head back out of his shirt. "I need some water," he says, stumbling slightly as he runs from the room. Mark follows without really thinking about it consciously.

He finds Jack in the kitchen, standing at the sink and gulping down water from a large glass. He turns and jumps when he sees Mark. 

"M'sorry," Mark says quietly, joining him at the sink. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He's close enough to touch, close enough to smell the invigorating scent that clings to Jack's flesh and strikes at him like an aphrodisiac. 

Shaking his head Jack murmurs, "No, it's okay. Ye didn't do anythin'. I'm..." He sighs. "I can't stop thinkin' about ye like... like that. Tha' was... potent." He looks up and meets Mark's eyes, his expression practically broadcasting arousal and need.

"Yeah," Mark gulps, resting a hand on the counter to brace himself. "Obviously you could see that I enjoyed it."

Jack takes a small step towards him, invading his personal bubble. "I did," he agrees, hushed. 

Blue eyes dig into him, making Mark's heart palpitate dangerously hard beneath his ribs. It's so loud, ringing in his ears. How can Jack not hear it? Mark stares back because he can, because Jack is exposed freely without getting embarrassed by Mark's attention. Though, holding eye contact isn't exactly helping his body to calm down. His erection that never completely went away is back in full force, pressing against his zipper and creating undue amounts of discomfort. But the shorter man just looks on, unaware of the catastrophe he's creating within Mark.

Mark doesn't want to break the silence, but the way that Jack is looking at him is making him want to say something, anything, everything, just to keep that look in his memory forever. He opens his mouth to speak, but Jack stops him by looping a hand around the back of his neck and leaving it there to thread into the hairs at his nape. Stock-still, Mark raises both eyebrows in question but Jack either doesn't see or doesn't care, because suddenly he's pulling Mark to him with a stronger grip than Mark would have expected.

Their mouths connect harshly, a clash of lips that should be over as soon as it started, but instead of pulling away Jack realigns himself against Mark and then it's better. Mark must make some noise of shock, but it's swallowed by the heat of Jack's mouth, smothered by and forgotten in his intensity. Jack takes his other hand and puts it on Mark's cheek, holding him there as if he's afraid he'll disappear.

Without making the decision himself Mark lets go of the counter and turns them both, his hands at Jack's hips, until Jack is pressed back against the countertop. Once there he tilts his head and bears down on Jack, finally letting his eager hands wander like he's dreamed of doing since the day they met. They slide around Jack's back, holding him so close Mark's afraid he's hurting him, but Jack makes a small sound at the pressure and then both his hands clamp around Mark's neck. 

His lips part on a small gasp when Jack's nails dig into his skin, just slightly, and Jack takes the opportunity to lick his way into his mouth. As Jack links both arms around his neck and sighs into the kiss Mark slides a hand up under his shirt, caressing the hot skin he finds there. Jack makes another noise and his tongue grapples against Mark's desperately.

Clawing his hand in Jack's shirt Mark pulls the fabric up until it bunches underneath his arms. Without prompt Jack releases him and lifts his arms above his head, and Mark removes his shirt then stares at what it hid. Only being the second time he's seen Jack shirtless, it's still a bit of a slap in the face. Jack is by no means the most attractive man he's ever seen--though still very attractive, and just plain handsome--but Mark is undeniably drawn to him unlike anyone else before. 

Jack's hands, in the brief absence of Mark's enthusiasm, get busy with relieving Mark of his clothing. Jack tugs up his shirt hem and he obliges him easily. A grin spreads over Mark's face when the Irishman hesitates indefinitely, his eyes broadcasting desire as they move over his bare skin.

"Are you even real?" Jack whispers, letting his hands rest on Mark's chest.

"I have a physical job," Mark shrugs. He doesn't miss the way Jack traces the movement with his gaze. "I'm good at other physical things too," he adds cheekily, eyebrows waggling.

Jack smiles wryly at him. "I'll jus' bet you are," he chuckles. His hands become persistent as his fingers press into the flesh at Mark's sides, pulling him closer. "Why don't ye show me?" he asks huskily.

Mark gulps, an unusual trepidation coming over him. He's been craving this for the past two weeks so why is he suddenly doubtful? Is it because of Jack and his issues that Mark knows he hasn't really overcome yet? Or is it just because he cares so much and doesn't want to ruin anything? His hands smooth up and down Jack's arms and the contact comforts him, somewhat settling the spike of anxiety within him.

Looking up at him Jack murmurs, "Is that a no?" The way he says it is sultry, suggestive even. Mark's face flames and Jack sniggers. "Or is someone gettin' a little shy?" He lifts his face for a kiss, his nose brushing Mark's before their lips come together again.

_Ah, screw it,_ Mark thinks. He throws caution to the wind and grabs Jack by the hips, hoisting him onto the counter, then steps between his parted legs and presses their bodies closely together with a hand at the small of Jack's back. Jack makes a surprised noise, quickly followed by a soft moan when Mark gyrates his body in one fluid motion against his. His hands spear through the brunet's hair, tugging and directing the angle of his head as Jack kisses him over and over. 

Mark works at his roommate's zipper one-handed, the other busy with touching the skin above Jack's jeans. His mouth bites at Jack's with harsh kisses, nipping gently when he gets the urge. Jack hums into his mouth when Mark gets his zip undone and he doesn't break stride, shoving his hand directly underneath the paler man's underwear and around his shaft.

Jack gasps, a loud sound in the stark quiet of the kitchen. He leans back, breaking their kiss to look down between them where Mark's hand is already moving insistently over him. Heaving out a short breath Jack whines when Mark gravitates to his neck instead and nibbles at the base of his jaw. His chin tips to the ceiling and Mark bites him harder, eliciting a groan from deep in his throat that Mark feels in his teeth.

_He's loud,_ crosses Mark's mind errantly when he squeezes his hand on Jack's cock and the man cries out. He can't really find it in him to care, at all.

Slim, strong hands scramble along Mark's shoulders when he develops a deep love for giving Jack hickeys all along his neck. He slows his movements to savour the taste of him, becoming teasing instead of direct and planting kisses down Jack's body. Pausing at a nipple he takes the bud between his lips and sucks, then rubs with the flat of his tongue. He feels Jack tremble under him and lifts his hands from his groin--ignoring Jack's indignant whine--to smooth them up his sides, slow and tantalizing. 

"This is okay, right?" Mark asks, because he has to be sure. Jack could be wound up, frustrated after the whole nude sketch, or just swept up in the moment. The alcohol doesn't help convince him that Jack really wants this either, despite Jack coming on to him this time. Booze can make anyone into a flirt.

Jack stares at him with hooded eyes then bites his lip. Mark focuses on the action intently, wanting to bite there himself. "Would you fuck me?" he asks rather than answer Mark's question.

"I can," Mark replies, throat tight. "Do you want me to?" _Please say yes, please,_ Mark internally begs.

"Oh, yes," Jack sighs, moving his hips as if in emphasis and drawing attention to his jeans, hanging open and sitting loosely on him, his hard cock half-exposed from his boxer-briefs. "This is me consentin', so stop havin' a freak out and fuckin' ravish me like I know ye want to."

Mark coughs out a short laugh, eyeing Jack. "If you say so," he says with a smile. Then, "Shit. All my, er, stuff is upstairs."

Moaning pitifully, Jack whines, "I don't wanna move. Go get it."

Dark eyebrows lift in amusement. "You want to have sex in the kitchen?"

"Are you seriously arguin' with me right now on the semantics of us screwin'?" Jack snorts. "I said I ain't movin'. Go get the stuff."

Mark laughs, stepping back with reluctance and setting Jack down on his feet. He stares down at his groin, thoroughly distracted by the sight of Jack in such a state of undress and disarray, before shaking himself and saying, "I'll be right back." He rushes from the room with a quick backward glance at the doorway, then bolts upstairs and straight into his bedroom. Wrenching open his nightstand drawer he snags a handful of condoms and a small bottle of lubricant, then slams it shut and hastens back the way he came.

His partner is waiting for him, but impatiently. "There ye are," Jack snickers. "I was about te start touchin' myself."

Mark's lower abdomen burns with a sudden fire. "Were you?" he says lowly, seductive. "Because, you know that's my job."

Jack quirks an eyebrow, a flush high on his cheeks. "Then get to it."

He couldn't ask for more of an invitation. Mark walks purposefully towards Jack, relishing the way the other man visibly squirms in anticipation. Discarding his handful of prophylactics onto the table Mark pins him again, this time against the dining table, and he lifts Jack to rest his butt on the polished wood. For a moment he just looks, studying the darkening marks on his neck and shoulders, distinct blemishes on otherwise flawless skin. Then his gaze slides south and the fire within is stoked to a roar. Jack is leaking precum, and even as Mark watches him his cock twitches. 

Jack whimpers, a small and needy sound. "Christ, Mark, would ye fuckin' touch me already? I'm not a piece of art, you can get right fuckin' grabby with me."

"You are, though," Mark insists, meeting his eyes. "A work of art. Completely breathtaking." He leans forward and captures Jack's mouth in a tender kiss, a hand at his cheek. Jack makes another noise but Mark devours it, coaxing Jack to open up with a tongue at his lips. A fine tremor travels his body and Jack obeys, his lips parting, and Mark thrusts his tongue inside. 

Clutching at Mark's shoulders Jack licks along his tongue, breaths quickly becoming uneven as Mark finds his cock again with his right hand. The angle isn't ideal but he makes it work well enough. Before long Jack is lifting his pelvis rhythmically to suit Mark's strokes, one hand planted on the tabletop behind him and the other buried in his partner's hair. When Jack tugs at the locks in his fist, his whole body tensing briefly with a short, soft cry, Mark growls and bites at his lips. The younger man moans as he tilts his head back, body arching into Mark's touches. Mark could get drunk all over again just on the sounds Jack is making.

Mark takes his hands away and ignores Jack's mournful groan as he pulls him to stand on his feet again. But when Mark pushes his unbuttoned jeans past his hips and to the floor Jack eagerly steps out of the garment, and for good measure slips out of his underwear as well as his socks and tosses those aside too. 

Blowing out a quick breath Mark wrenches his eyes away from Jack's body to look at his face. His cheeks are pink, and reddening more by the second. Slowly Mark eases his hands along Jack's hips in a caress, lifting him a second time to sit on the table. Jack's eyes never leave his, holding a heat within them that melts Mark to his core. 

Easing back into a recline, Jack takes one hand and pumps his cock, his body curving with every stroke, his eyes closing on a sigh. Mark salivates at the sight of Jack pleasuring himself and comes forward, hands easing his thighs apart so he can insinuate himself between them. As if on cue, Jack's legs lift to hook around Mark's hips and pull him close, but he frowns.

"The hell d'you think you'll be needin' pants for?" Jack asks him, fingertips playing at the waist of his jeans. His hands move to the front where they clumsily undo the clasp and pull down the zipper. Mark sighs, a grateful noise, as the pressure against his dick is released. Jack shoves the jeans down until they pool at his feet then slides his underwear down his thighs to follow them. His cock springs free, devastatingly hard and veined and Mark steps out of his clothes, kicking them aside. Now apparently content with Mark's nudity, Jack pulls him close again with his legs around his hips and Mark groans the loudest when their cocks brush. 

"Jack," he moans, because now the Irishman has a hand around him and is moving steadily. 

"Yeah, say my name," Jack murmurs, taking Mark by the jaw and pulling him into an all-tongue kiss. Mark puts his hands on either side of his face and, using his body, pushes Jack to lie back on the table. Directly after he straightens, keeping Jack down with a hand on his chest. Jack opens his mouth to argue, but it clamps shut again when he sees Mark is reaching for the lube and condoms. He shifts eagerly against Mark's hips, heels digging into his back.

Mark gives him an amused look. His hands pet Jack's thighs, caressing and gentle, as he lifts them away from his body and instead lets Jack place his heels on the edge of the table. The cap on the bottle opens with a loud creak of plastic, a sharp sound that amplifies the heavy sexual tension hanging in the room. Mark coats the fingers of his left hand and sets the bottle aside, massaging his thumb over the skin behind Jack's balls and making him huff quietly. He places his slick hand at Jack's puckered hole, tentative at first. Jack jerks minutely and curses, then his hips push back against Mark's fingers. 

Taking his time Mark pushes in his index finger in a singular motion, smoothly, until his knuckles press against Jack's ass. The Irishman lets out a slow, unsteady breath, his back lifted off the tabletop and eyes shut tight. Mark watches him, hand moving, and sees the reaction when he teases a fingertip around his hole as he pulls back. Jack reaches out blindly for something to hold onto and his hand finds the back of a chair to his left. His knuckles turn white when Mark moves back in.

Once he's sure Jack can take another, Mark adds a second finger and Jack's breath gusts out, chest heaving. "You're so sexy," Mark tells him, his eyes everywhere on his body. He pushes in again and Jack whimpers, biting his bottom lip and staring at Mark even as he stares at Jack. "Do you know how much I like you? It's actually crazy." Mark should probably stop talking, but he can't, and because Jack won't look away he doesn't want to. "I keep having these daydreams, where we're in this house together years from now, and the place is full of your paintings. One on every wall."

Jack cries out as Mark crooks his fingers and strokes inside him. "I'm always wanting to touch you, always craving to have you near me." He wraps his other hand around Jack's freely weeping cock and he jerks with a gasp, then moans throatily as Mark quickly works him. "I want you in my bed every night so I can fall asleep with your smell around me."

"Mark," Jack whines, chin towards the ceiling as he's stretched with a third finger. His breathing is shallow and shaky, his skin is flushed with need and his cock is firm in Mark's hand. "C...c'mon, 'm ready," he gets out, hand scrabbling for purchase against Mark's skin. His nails drag against his chest and Mark groans, arching into the feeling.

He slips his hand out, greatly pleased with the sound Jack makes when he does, and rips open a condom wrapper. He rolls it on himself and gives a quick spread of lube, then pulls Jack by the hips until he's at the perfect spot on the edge of the table. Mark glances up when Jack makes a soft whine, and he's staring back, looking down at Mark's cock with hunger in his eye. The sight gives Mark a rush of heat through his limbs.

Pressing the tip against Jack's ass, Mark gives a light thrust and feels himself slip just inside. Jack moans loudly, a hand coming up to cover his mouth, and from behind it he begs, "Fock, fockin' hell, please move, _please_."

Obliging, Mark rolls his hips forward slowly until he feels the press of flesh against his groin. Jack's back is completely off the table, one hand half-propping him into a sitting position and the other clamped firmly at Mark's elbow to keep him somewhat upright. Perhaps a little too eagerly Mark snaps his hips after he pulls back, and Jack curses harshly, the words a hiss. But he moans right after when Mark does it again, and then keeps moaning once Mark settles into a firm rhythm, his fingers a bruising pressure at his hips as he pulls Jack to meet every thrust. 

Jack's legs loop around Mark's back as he struggles to hang on, his moaning synonymous with each breath he takes. He's barely touching the table now, Mark taking the majority of his weight and lifting him bodily to meet the furious movements of his hips. But he wants something to press Jack up against, so he hoists his partner up, turns and steps to the fridge, caging him against the appliance and letting go with one hand to slip it between them and grasp Jack's reddened erection.

Immediately Jack cries out, the noise nearly a sob, and Mark speeds his hand to match the speed of his pelvis. Jack rocks against the fridge, his face skyward as he smothers screams with his fist in his mouth.

"I've dreamed about you like this," Mark huffs, eyes glued to Jack's. He looks down, blue eyes full of wild passion, and Mark continues, "Dreamed of doing this to you every night. Imagined how you'd look, how you'd sound. You're better than I ever could have pictured."

Jack gasps out, "God, m-me too," and then he's incapable of speech because he's too busy heaving out breaths to manage much else. Mark jerks his hand faster and slams into Jack, hungering to see his climax, and he's not disappointed. Jack's body convulses, trembling from head to toe as he shouts his release, spurting cum all up Mark's chest and digging crescents into his shoulders with his fingernails. 

Chasing his own finish Mark rails into Jack, his tired and fucked-out sex noises music to his ears. When he comes he shoves Jack into the fridge and mashes their mouths together, battling his tongue with Jack's until his body stops shaking.

It's a few minutes before they finally separate, and then Mark can only stare, but the illusion is over now. Jack is looking a lot like a man desperate to be elsewhere. It looks as if the curtain of emotional deflection is back up, covering Jack from Mark's gaze.

_I guess that's that,_ Mark thinks, defeated. He doesn't say anything as he gently pulls out, setting Jack on his feet. He bends--clearly being the steadier of the two--to retrieve their clothes, and hands Jack's things to him. Mark, after disposing of the condom in the trash can and halfheartedly wiping at the mess covering his chest with some paper towels, steps into his underwear and pants then pulls his shirt on over his head. He doesn't dare look at Jack again. Once was enough.

"Mark," Jack says softly once they're both redressed. His hesitation is obvious. "Mark, listen, I... I, ah..."

"No explanation necessary," Mark says numbly. "This... this clearly hasn't changed anything for you."

Jack's silence is his answer. Mark shakes his head, amazed at himself. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have ignored everything that Jack had told him, just because Jack came onto him when they were drunk? He said he wanted it. He said it was okay. He didn't say he'd amended anything, or that it would matter to him afterwards.

"Wade is back tomorrow morning," Mark reminds him, for something non-personal to say. "I'm going to pick him up at the airport, him and Molly, so I won't be here when you wake up probably." Not that you would notice, either way, Mark adds morosely.

"When will you be back?" Jack asks, and there's something in his voice that makes Mark remember how Jack feels about being alone here.

Mark doesn't look at him, but he adjusts his tone into a kind one. "Shouldn't be later than one. I'll call you if we get delayed."

"Okay," Jack mumbles. He sounds relieved, if subdued. 

Nodding, Mark turns to the doorway. "I've got some financing stuff to do. I'll be upstairs if you need me." He flees the room as a normal pace despite wanting to bolt from there like a cat with its tail on fire. In his room, he shuts the door and leans back against it.

As he lets out a sigh Mark wonders, _What did I do? Why do I have to deal with this?_ His eyes drift to the scattering of papers on his desk, reports and things for the farm, his revenue and net worth, et cetera. Work seems as good as anything to take his mind off of Jack, so he grudgingly moves to his desk chair and sits, intent to waste the remainder of the day in paperwork.

 

"I'm confused, I thought you said you finally got together?" Wade wonders from the back seat, a tight arm around his fiancée Molly.

"We _slept_ together," Mark corrects grumpily. "Yesterday. But, if you recall, he is also more skittish than a deer and can't seem to fathom or even care about my feelings for him." He takes the next turn off the main highway, heading into town.

"But you told him you loved him, right?" Molly asks. During the last hour or so of the drive she had been brought up to speed with Mark's pitiful string of events regarding his reluctant housemate, before which Mark had been subjected to their unbridled newly-engaged bliss, and all the stories from the past week that came with it. "Like, right before he came onto you." He sees her frown in the rearview mirror. "I guess he could think that being drunk and having sex was a mistake, and didn't want to admit it."

Mark has to actively stop himself from scoffing derisively. "If that was it then I doubt he would have been quite that... empty, afterwards," Mark grouches. "There were two separate times that we paused, that he could have put a stop to it. He was desperate for it." He can't help himself from adding, "But not for me. Just for sex. He knew I would do it in a heartbeat if he asked me."

Heaving a big sigh Wade says, "And that's his fault for taking advantage of your feelings. But unfortunately you were both consenting adults, so it's not like either of you can run around accusing the other of unwanted seduction." Mark sees him share a look with Molly in his peripherals. 

"What?" Mark demands wearily. 

"Well," Molly begins, "maybe he's intimidated by how serious you are about him. Maybe he's got big commitment issues along with his trust issues."

_Do I even stand a chance, if that's the case?_ Mark thinks dismally. Knowing how he feels hasn't convinced Jack to change his mind at all, except to have sex with him. And that hardly counts. "If that's true," Mark sighs, "then I may as well throw in the towel. It took this much effort just to get him to have meaningless sex with me, and he hasn't done barely any healing in that time. It'll be five years before he's ready to date, at this pace."

"But he's told you he felt the same once, before you confessed, and he's shared things with you--with both of us--about his home life." Wade shrugs. "I think he trusts you but he's afraid to tell you because then you'll have power over him, and he's probably afraid of a repeat of what happened in Ireland."

"If Jack knew me at all he would know that I'm not that kind of person," Mark snaps, gripping the steering wheel with muted force. He brakes at one of the three stoplights in town and chews his lip. "But I think that's the whole point. He doesn't want to know me."

Wade and Molly don't seem to have an answer to that, so Mark drives in silence. When they're a handful of minutes away from home Mark speed-dials number six and holds his phone to his ear.

"Hello?" Jack answers after two rings.

"We're almost home," Mark intones. "See you in a few."

"A-alright," Jack murmurs, then he's quiet. 

The tension stretches like taffy in the silence, waiting for someone to take a bite. Mark waits a beat, then says, "I'm hanging up, Jack."

"Wait!" Jack says quickly. When Mark doesn't hang up he continues, "I just... I don't think I can say this to your face." A breath whooshes out on the other end. "I'm... I'm so sorry, Mark, I didn't mean--I didn't... It wasn't supposed to--"

Mark grimaces, his heart hurting. "I know you didn't mean anything by it. I know. It's old news, okay?" He exhales slowly to steady himself. He also ignores Wade doing the funky chicken in the backseat to get his attention. "We'll be there right away."

"Mark--" But he's already pressing the button to end the call. Grimly Mark looks at his phone, then accelerates around a corner.

Leaning forward over the centre console Wade asks briskly, "What did he say?"

"He apologized, and tried to say he didn't mean it, but I kind of shut him down. Then I hung up." Mark shrugs at Wade's fiercely indignant look. "He also said, "I don't think I can say this to your face"."

"No wonder you're single," Wade says harshly, and Molly slaps his shoulder with a sharp look. "Ow, okay, that was rude. But I am so not wrong. Instead of letting the guy try to talk to you in the easiest way for him to do, you cut him off and hang up?"

"I'm extremely, exasperatingly tired of hearing him tell me he's sorry," Mark mumbles. He takes the last turn onto their road. "And I'm especially tired of being in situations where one of us has to apologize." He's quiet until he pulls up in front of the house, then he turns off the ignition and rotates in his seat to face Molly and Wade. "It's pretty clear how well this is working out. So." Mark lifts his eyebrows emphatically. "I'm wiping my hands of this... whatever it is between Jack and me. He's not willing, and I'm in way too deep for me to be comfortable with the only thing I could have with him. Which means neither of you are going to meddle. Not in the slightest," he adds firmly when Wade opens his mouth.

Grouchily Wade says, "See how far that gets you, you lonely bastard." Then he slams his way out of the backseat and hauls his and Molly's luggage from the bed of the truck and towards the house.

Molly looks after him, looking pensive. "I don't know what's exactly going on," she sighs, "but I know that giving up when it's obvious you're so close won't do you any good."

"Nothing that's happened since he got here has done me any good, Mol," Mark says quietly. He gets out of the truck, opening her door for her and holding out a hand to help her climb down, then shuts the doors and locks the truck.

Inside Wade is nowhere to be seen, but Jack is standing in the foyer looking small and trepidatious. Mark fixes a kind smile on his face and introduces, "Jack, this is Molly, Wade's fiancée. Mol, this is Jack, my... roommate." Mark pretends he doesn't see Jack's tiny flinch at the word. "He's staying with us while he finds his muse."

Molly steps forward, all smiles, and shakes Jack's hand. "Great to finally meet you," Molly says cheerily. "Wade told me all about you. All good things, worry not. Don't tell anyone, but I think he's sweet on you," she teases.

Jack chuckles, glancing at Mark before replying, "Yes, such a tragedy that he's taken, the lucky girl."

"Lucky, indeed," she grins. At Jack's eager "gimme gimme" gesture she lifts her hand for him to see the ring. "Isn't it just gorgeous? Sapphires are my favourite."

"Beautiful," he tells her, letting her hand go. When the conversation lulls, he adds uncertainly, "I, ah, made some lunch, if anyone's hungry."

"Did I hear something about food?" Wade asks as he comes down the stairs sans luggage. "Because I could sure fucking eat."

"In here," Jack murmurs, and leads the way to the kitchen. The table is set for four, plates already filled with roast beef and all the fixings--buttered carrots, mashed potatoes, green beans and even gravy.

With an appreciative whistle Wade settles himself at the table, easing Molly into the spot next to him. He starts digging in without a word. She gives him an indulgent smile before sending a pleased, thankful look Jack's way and turning to her own plate.

It smells amazing, and Mark is hungry, but the idea of sitting so close beside Jack sets his nerves on edge. When he looks up Jack is staring at the floor, standing hesitantly near the empty chairs on the opposite side of the table. That face... Steeling himself, Mark makes the short trek to one of the two open seats and sits. A moment later Jack sits next to him.

Jack asks Molly and Wade how their engagement "honeymoon" went, and they regale him with all the cutesy couple things the two did while they were together in Cincinnati. Mark responds when spoken to, but otherwise lets the words wash over him as he eats. He heard it all on the drive anyway.

Soon his plate is empty and Mark stands to bring it to the sink. As he fills the sink with soapy water Jack appears at his elbow. "I'll do the dishes," he says softly, reaching as if to touch Mark's arm but then he stops himself.

Mark glances over his shoulder at Molly and Wade, who both give him a not-so-subtle thumbs up, then back to Jack. His fingers crave the feeling of that pale skin beneath them, making Mark's attempt at an easygoing attitude crumble to dust. "I'll help," he says simply, telling his body to go fly a kite.

He washes and Jack dries, and after they're done eating Molly and Wade add their plates to the pile with the announcement that they're going into town to go show off a bit. Mark waves them off with a grin and a few seconds later the front door closes behind them.

Silence sits like a shroud on their shoulders. Jack breaks it, looking ahead out the window. "Mark, can we talk?"

_Here we go,_ he thinks, bracing himself. He leans against the counter, turned slightly towards Jack. "I think," Mark begins gently, slowly, "that whatever you have to say probably isn't necessary. I knew before--" He falters on the words, once so wonderful just to speculate about, but now... "I knew before this happened what level of commitment you were willing to give, and it's not enough for me. I think it would be... better, if we kept this strictly friendly between us from now on." Once he says it there's a damp ache in his throat, squeezing all the way down to his heart, that he can't swallow away. The feeling intensifies when Jack doesn't respond and Mark glances over at him.

His head is bowed, eyes down on the empty sink in front of him. He still has a dish towel in his hand. "I did it again," he whispers.

"Did what?" Mark asks.

"Hurt you," Jack almost whimpers. "And this time it looks like you've had enough of my shit. I can't keep draggin' you along in my wake and expectin' you to take the bullshit I keep handin' you, just because I'm under some... some illusion that no matter what I do, no matter how much I fuck you over, you'll always be around." He's wringing the towel in his hands anxiously, stretching the fabric. He isn't looking at Mark.

"Jack, I don't blame you," Mark says. His instincts tell him to comfort the man beside him, but he doesn't know how welcome he is or whether Jack even needs it. "I'll be honest, yesterday was really amazing. And then it sucked. Hard." He smiles when Jack snorts. "And I don't understand why you did it in the first place, because every time we talk it seems like--" He stops himself.

"What?" Jack coaxes, and he looks up. His eyes are dewy. "Seems like what?"

Mark sighs. "Every time we talk about something personal or... do something personal, it seems like I'm some enamoured young schoolboy and you're... an indifferent stranger. Yesterday was no exception. As soon as it was over, as soon as you understood what had happened, you couldn't..." Mark swallows again but it still doesn't help. "You couldn't even look at me." That could've been for any number of reasons. Mark hadn't performed well enough. Jack regretted the decision to have sex. Jack felt awkward after sleeping with someone he didn't know that well. He was made uncomfortable by all the romantic things Mark had said in the heat of the moment. He hadn't meant to even initiate anything with Mark in the first place but he was drunk and loosely bound, morally speaking. 

Something tells Mark it was a combination of all of the above.

"I'm so sorry," Jack laments, distressed. "I'm--I totally fucked this up. I completely fucked it. This is all on me."

"It takes two," is all Mark says. His voice sounds dead, even to him. "Drunk or not, I knew it was a bad idea. But I wanted it--you--so badly that it didn't seem to matter. Nothing did." Only you mattered, he wants to add, but that's another one of those "you're making me uncomfortable with how much you care about me" things that Mark needs to learn to keep to himself. "If I was sober maybe I would've seen how stupid I was being." Stupid enough to believe Jack actually wanted him as more than just a dildo to use, even for a second.

"You weren't stupid," the artist insists, and he grabs onto Mark's forearm tightly. "You're not stupid. None of this is your fault."

"You've told me before that you're not remotely interested in me beyond sexual attraction," Mark snarls, "and I still let us have sex. I still expected you to... to just fall in love with me because I wanted you to. It's as stupid as stupid gets." He shakes his head, angry at himself. "Day one, you warned me. You want nothing to do with relationships." Mark runs a hand through his hair, smoothing it back from his forehead. "I finally got the message."

Jack steps into his space and the hand on his arm slides up until it rests on Mark's bicep. His heart beats a little faster, and Mark reminds it that it has no business doing so. "I've also told you that if I had my choice of men," he says in a hush, "it would hands-down be you."

"But not because you love me," Mark says thickly. "Or even like me. You just want my body, and what it can do for you."

"No, no no," Jack says hurriedly as Mark takes a step back. "No, listen, please, I--it's not that, okay? I just--I need some time to warm up to it. I'm not... ready yet."

Morose, Mark looks at him. "You've had two weeks to warm up to me, and you slept with me just fine. If it hasn't happened by now, after everything, it's never going to." Studying the man in front of him, he adds, "You still love the guy from Ireland. And I'm not enough to make you want to forget him." _I'm a coping mechanism and a physical distraction,_ he thinks bleakly.

Jack opens his mouth to deny it, but Mark knows he can't. "I can--I..."

"It's okay," Mark says quietly, because Jack's expression is so utterly lost and distraught that he knows he needs comfort now. He lays a light hand on Jack's shoulder and he visibly leans into it, but Mark doesn't take anything from it. "We can be friends, it's alright. I'll get over it in a while, and it'll be easier."

"You love me," Jack murmurs, lifting his eyes to Mark's. "How could you get over me when I'm right here, when I live with you, when--"

"That's my problem, not yours," Mark tells him. "We're just friends, and we have separate things to deal with ourselves. Don't worry," he soothes when it looks like Jack's face is threatening to crumple. "It'll all be fine, you'll see. A month from now you'll wonder what you were even fretting over."

Jack turns mournful eyes on him, his hand reaching up to cover Mark's. Offering his own form of comfort, Mark supposes. "I doubt I'll last that long," he says, withdrawn. 

A sliver of dread pierces into Mark's chest. "What do you mean?"

"Knowin' what I've done to you," he mumbles, "and what I'm still doin' to you just by bein' here... I don't think I could stay here." His hand over Mark's squeezes for a brief couple seconds, then drops away altogether. 

"Oh." It's almost like being poleaxed, the sudden realization that Jack could very easily go and never return. Ever. He could sever all ties and just disappear, like that. He wants to leave.

_Why wouldn't he?_ something nasty inside Mark's head wonders as he lets his hand fall. _He has no ties here to sever, after all. He's been looking to "put down roots" somewhere, but he never said it would be here. He said he liked it here, but that doesn't mean he'll tolerate you just to stick around._

"Alright," Mark manages to get out, and it sounds normal enough. "Well... Let--let me know if you want to relocate to somewhere else in town, if... um, something happens and you change your mind about staying here, and I'll make the arrangements."

"Okay," Jack says, quiet. He won't look at Mark anymore.

Taking that as his cue to leave, Mark spares him a final glance before leaving the room. Chica greets him at the archway, butt wiggling in her eagerness for pets. He bends and gives her a stroke in passing, but barely slows on his way to his bedroom. 

Once shut inside he walks to the window and looks out over the small forest that his property contains. His view is nice, but he doesn't think he'll ever like it as much as he does when it's recreated in two-dimensional miniature. A spellbinding combination of colours caressed by brushes, coming together to illustrate reality anew. Colours on skin instead of canvas, on the back of a hand or the inside of a wrist. Charcoal-stained fingertips that tease a piece of paper into a masterpiece. Brown hair, nearly turning grey, streaked with paint from a well-versed hand.

Maybe, in time, Mark could find another favourite work of art.

 

Thursday comes too soon for Mark's liking. 

He likes his town, and the people in it. He does, really. Mark grew up here, loves the land and the atmosphere and if anyone asked him, he'd say he's never leaving. But sometimes he contemplates taking a local resident's life and he doesn't even feel that bad about it. 

Gertrude's end-of-summer party is today, only a few hours away now, and Mark will be damned if he's going to subject himself to more public interrogation than necessary. Already he's had Diana Webber--Dilly, as most everyone calls her--his neighbour about five miles down the road from his farm, "stop by" with her husband and their four young kids for a visit. He gave her the benefit of the doubt despite her being a known gossip, welcomed her family in with open arms and made coffee (tea for her husband, Carlisle), but her visit basically encompassed him being grilled about his date for the dance as Chica played and rolled in the grass with her offspring. Needless to say, Mark made sure it was a short visit.

With heaving breaths Mark hefts box after obnoxiously heavy box of produce to be jammed, jellied, pickled or jarred into the cold cellar beneath the house. He'll keep most of the food that he cooks into preserves or other things down here, since it'll be another few days at least before he gets to the task. Nearby he hears Wade grunting with effort as he unloads more boxes from the truck and puts them at the top of the stairs for Mark to carry down and store. 

After another forty minutes the job is completed, and Mark spends a half-hour taking a quick browse of what the farmhands and part-timers have accomplished for the day. His unofficial manager for the property Jessamine, or Jessie, sits with him on the porch step as they discuss it. She basically handles things when Mark or Wade can't. She knows what needs doing daily and weekly, who ought to do it, and what do to when something goes awry.

"And those patches of pumpkins seem to be cured of that blight that was going around the gourd fields," she finishes, sipping from a water bottle.

"Good, good," Mark mumbles, nodding. "Well, everything appears to not be on fire, anyway, so I think we're in the clear. Thanks, Jessie, you can head on out."

Jessie stands, dusting the grit off her jeans. "Will I be seeing you at the dance later?" she asks. 

Mark feels his expression sour. "Yes, I suppose you will," he says, and he just knows he's doing his Igor face. He can't give a particular fuck, at the moment.

"Now that's quite the smile," Jessie laughs. "What, you don't want my tikes hanging off your legs like monkeys on a tree trunk? You know they get a kick out of you."

Sighing he admits, "I'm the current feed for the rumour mill, and all anyone can ask me is who I'm bringing to this dance, and everyone only wants to hear one answer." Mark rubs a hand wearily over his face, uncaring about the dirt on his palm. He has to shower anyway. "And me and the other guy are both at our wit's end."

The older woman taps the toe of her boot against the lowest porch step, deep in thought. Then she says, "This wouldn't be about the fireworks between you and your housemate, eh? I've never seen you so defensive." Her face softens, looking motherly and gentle, and reminding Mark somewhat painfully of his own mom. "It's just gossip, nothing you haven't been the subject of before."

"This is different," Mark says at once. "They're taking it too far this time."

Jessie studies his face intently. "Is it? Or do you just think it is because you're protecting him from it all?"

"You can't deny that this is the worst the town's ever been with me," he argues. "Seriously. Dilly Webber made a house call today just to fish for answers."

"No, that's true," Jessie agrees, "but they mean well. They know you're happy with Jack, and in my personal opinion, while you've always loved openly, with Jack you're..." She shrugs helplessly. "Jack brings out the best side of you. Even with him being... how he is, you still drop everything for that young man."

"What do you mean, 'how he is'?" Mark says, huffy. "There's nothing wrong with him."

"There isn't. He's an outstanding boy, polite and kind, and everyone loves him." Jessie sighs. "But the people in town, anyone who sees you two out together, we all know that he's got a power over you that no one else has come close to having. And that's only because you let him have it." She tucks her hands into her pockets and strides toward the opposite side of the house, beyond which lays a patch of grass that the farmhands park their vehicles on. Pausing, she turns back and says, "There's such a thing as equal shares, though, don't you think? You should ask Jack about what he thinks he'll do when you're not around for him anymore, and then maybe he'll stop cooling his heels and finally come after you." She turns around and waves over her shoulder, disappearing behind the house.

Mark scoffs, getting to his feet and whistling for Chica. She sprints around the corner of the east side of the house and comes to him and he leads the way inside the kitchen door. If he asked Jack what he'd do if Mark left him alone, stopped doing things for him and stopped prioritizing him... Jack would probably pull a muscle laughing. 

Speaking of Jack, the past few days specifically have been a lesson in strange behaviour. He's been... Well, it's like the sex thing never happened. Jack is acting normal, like there's never been any tension between them, even occasionally initiating a touch or being the last to look away. Mark would be loving it if he wasn't completely confused about where it's all coming from.

As he toes off his boots, Jack comes into the kitchen. When he sees Mark he smiles wide and the familiar excitement sits in Mark's chest, warm and fluttering like a bird. Jack's dressed nicely, in dark skinny jeans and a teal button-up shirt opened at the collar with the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He looks good enough to eat.

Once Mark notices he's gawking, he tears his eyes away and instead says neutrally, "Hey, all ready for the dance?"

Jack comes right to him, fingers fidgeting at his banded wrists. "Yeah. Do I look okay? I wasn't sure about this shirt."

"You look great," Mark tells him, smiling. "Give me some time to shower and get pretty, and we can go, alright?"

"Okay," Jack murmurs. He opens his mouth to say something else, but then he seems to think better of it and just nods mutely. Mark gives him a second to speak but when he doesn't, he just smiles again and leaves Jack alone. 

He heads upstairs and showers thoroughly, getting rid of the grime covering his body and lathering his hair generously. After he gets out he trims his beard and takes the time to blow dry his hair for optimal fluff. Brushing it through until he's satisfied, Mark studies his reflection and nods his approval.

In his room Mark debates semi-casual versus casual as he stares into his closet, but he opts to follow Jack's lead and pulls out a nice white t-shirt with a v-neck, tugging it on and coupling it with one of his less beat up pair of jeans. He preens in the mirror in his room one last time, spritzes himself with cologne, finds himself appropriate and makes his way back downstairs. Jack is pacing in the hallway at the foot of the stairs.

"There are easier ways to polish the floors," Mark says, smirking. At Jack's blank look, he adds, "Your pacing is going to wear out the hardwood."

Jack gives a short, nervous laugh. "Right, sorry," he says, tugging at one band with two fingers. "You, em, you look really great."

Mark inhales slowly, taking a chance and stepping into Jack's personal space. The Irishman looks up from his fidgeting, his face pink. Mark puts a careful hand on his arm and Jack bites his lip but doesn't say anything. "Thanks. Why so nervous?"

"Lots of people will be there," Jack replies, and he looks uneasy but not uncomfortable. "I'm not lookin' forward to dodgin' all the questions."

Mark shrugs, a carefree smile on his lips. "Don't worry about it. Once we get there it'll be a cakewalk when they see we're not together at all." 

Jack frowns and doesn't respond for a long moment. "Well, should we go?"

"Yeah, c'mon," Mark beckons, opening the front door for him. "We'll be back in a few hours, Chica. You be a good girl." Once Jack walks out he follows and shuts the door behind him. "I'll assume Wade and Mol already left?"

"About half an hour ago," Jack nods, "while you were showerin'."

They climb into Mark's truck and the two of them are silent for the drive into town. Whenever Mark glances at Jack he has this determined set to his eyebrows, but then it'll waiver and be replaced by a hesitant, fearful look, and then go back to determined. Curiosity claws at Mark, but he doesn't interrupt Jack's emotional turmoil. 

"We're here," Mark says for something to say as they pull up to the community centre and park in a free space. Jack's head snaps up and he looks startled, but quickly he calms down. He looks over at Mark, something unrecognizable in his face. "Wanna go in?" Mark asks him.

"Yeah," Jack says, "let's do this." He huffs, supposedly steeling himself, before climbing down out of the truck. Mark walks around the truck and joins Jack on his way to the doors. As they approach the door Jack stumbles on a large crack in the sidewalk, and instinctively Mark's hands shoot out to steady him, grasping at his elbow and keeping him upright. 

Jack sends him a grateful look, his pale fingers brushing lightly over where Mark holds his arm. "Thanks," he says quietly.

The way Jack's fingers caress his skin is doing very inappropriate things to Mark's body. Quickly he withdraws his hand from his arm and Jack's expression falls, as if disappointed by the move. _I must be imagining things,_ Mark thinks with a small shake of his head. He steps to the door and pulls it open, motioning Jack inside with a small bow. He smiles when Jack goes pink and hastens through the door.

Inside, the party is in full swing. Streamers, balloons and banners adorn the walls festively, advertising the levity of the occasion and labeling it the "Summer's End Bash!" Bodies crowd the large dance floor, placed in the middle of the room with round tables and chairs bordering it. At the back of the room is a large buffet, filled to overflowing with platters of finger food and bowls of punch. It looks like more than half the town is in attendance. Gertrude turned out another slam dunk party, it seems.

Mark takes Jack by the elbow and leads him into the room, through the crowds of people. After a handful of moments searching, Mark finds what he's looking for. Wade and Molly look up from their food when Mark and Jack stop at their table. He lets Jack go with a small apologetic smile before sitting. Jack smiles back and seats himself with a wary glance around the room. 

"Well, you two look incredibly uncomfortable," Wade muses, then laughs when their expressions darken simultaneously. "Christ, lighten up. Nobody here cares that you're together, except the old ladies, the gossips, and Gertrude."

"Wade, that's half the people here," Mark informs him grouchily. "And for the last time, we're not together." He glances over just in time to see Jack averting his face from the table. He's reaching out before he notices what he's doing, and makes his hand drop again. 

Molly smirks, chin resting in her hand. "Is that so? And I just imagined Mark's hand on your arm like a name tag that basically screams 'mine'?" 

"He stumbled outside, I was making sure he was steady," Mark says snappily, crossing his arms over his chest. He scowls when Wade laughs again. "Shut up, Wade."

Snickering behind her hand Molly says, "Just take him for a dance already."

Mark glances at Jack again, and this time Jack looks back. Hurriedly Jack looks away and gets to his feet. "I'm goin' to get some food. Mark, d'you want anythin'?"

"Yeah, some of those finger sandwiches, and some strawberries," he replies, adding a smile to try and ease the startled-rabbit look that Jack has in his eyes. "Thanks." Jack nods without replying and scurries off.

Wade is on him immediately. "Jesus, Mark, what did you do?"

"What?" Mark says, confused. 

"Before we left Jack ambushed me and asked me if you'd given up on him," Wade replies. "And then he went on to ask what you liked. He wanted great detail." His face tells Mark that he did not enjoy the experience.

"What did you say?" Mark asks warily. 

"I told him you've have to be dead to give up on him, and that all he had to do to know what you liked was to look in a mirror." He grins widely at Mark's quirked eyebrow. "Hey, you should've seen how flustered he got. I don't know what you did, but Jack made a turn around. He's coming after you."

The words make Mark's heart slam against his ribs, but he shakes his head. "I don't know," he says uncertainly. "He's been so... unusual the past few days."

"He probably needed time to think after that talk you had," Wade says. "And now it seems he's come to some conclusion. Believe me, he was tied up in knots waiting for you to get ready. I was afraid to leave him alone, the poor guy. He's nervous as all hell."

Well, Mark could see that, at least. He peers across the room and finds Jack, hovering at the buffet with two small plates in his hands, waiting his turn for the next assortment of food. He's been nervous since they talked, that's for sure. Mark had just assumed it was because of what happened earlier in the week, that Jack wasn't comfortable anymore. But if that was true, would he be touching and smiling at Mark?

"I just think you're reading into it too much," Mark says at length. "He's finally warming up to me again, but it's platonic." That, or he's working towards another... interlude with Mark. 

"Really," Wade says flatly. "Would he have waylaid me just to ask specific things about you if it was strictly platonic? And would he be falling over himself to get a plate of food for you, even as he's being harangued at the buffet and he looks like he may burst into flames?"

Mark whips around in his chair, eyes finding Jack. Dilly Webber, Mrs. Collins and Gertrude have all cornered him at the buffet, mouths going a mile a minute while Jack stands there looking trapped and horrified. Mark jumps to his feet and hastens over.

When Jack sees him coming his face breaks into an elated smile. "Ladies," Mark says pleasantly, and the three women startle and turn. "You wouldn't be terrorizing my houseguest, now would you? Because he's here to have fun, not be... interrogated." Mark narrows his eyes when Gertrude puffs up. "Don't start. We all know what you're doing, and you're going to stop now." With calculated strides Mark moves around them and settles in front of Jack, hiding him mostly from view. He feels Jack take hold of one of his hands and fights not to react.

Dilly folds her arms crossly. "For heaven's sake, Mark, we were only--"

"Interrogating, like you did this morning," he retorts. "And in case anyone noticed, Jack is very much not comfortable." Mark sighs. "When my marital status changes you three will likely be the first to know. But it's not changed, and I'm not even dating, so please stop. Carry on with the party. It looks great, by the way, Gertrude."

She smiles. "Thank you, honey." Eyeing Jack and Mark, she grunts, "Well, come on, girls. Somebody's ruined our fun." Slowly, with backward glances, the three women saunter off.

Mark turns once they're on the opposite side of the room, Jack's hand slipping from his. "You alright?"

Nodding, Jack looks after the women. "I was just gettin' us some snacks when they ambushed me. Nonstop questions about you and me, what I'd done to woo you, how we're gettin' along." He colours. "Diana even asked if I was a pitcher or catcher. All three of them laughed when I couldn't even respond without stammerin'."

Angrily Mark looks over his shoulder to where he can still see the women tittering on the other side of the dance floor, three pairs of eyes on him and Jack. "Dilly likes to get rises out of people. Makes for a better story. Be very careful around her in the future."

"Anyway," Jack murmurs, "here's your food." He holds out one of the small plates stacked in his left hand, and Mark takes it. "I got you some brownie bite things too."

Mark grins. "Awesome, I love brownies."

Jack ducks his head, smiling. "I know." He gestures behind them, to the buffet. "There's punch and stuff, too. And I have a surprise, if you want to indulge a bit."

"A surprise, eh?" Mark wonders, eyebrows up. "This I have to see." He sets his plate down to take an empty plastic cup, which he fills with punch and then hands to Jack. He fills a second and picks up his plate, motioning for Jack to lead the way back to the table.

Wade looks curious at their arrival. "I was sure you'd take another five minutes to neck in some secluded corner, at least."

Mark huffs out a laugh, setting his things down to pull out Jack's chair for him. The painter looks pleasantly surprised as he takes his seat. Mark sits beside him and says to Wade, "There are no secluded corners in here. Gertrude made sure of that. If any necking is to be going on, she wants to see it. She and her herd of gossips."

Wade shrugs. "Small town women, they need to get their kicks somewhere."

"Don't judge them so harshly," Molly says. "They just want to see you settle down. You're not getting any younger, Mark."

He grunts, unimpressed, and eats a strawberry. "They'd know. They're the ones giving me grey hairs."

Jack laughs. "Oh yeah, I'm already going grey, and they're not helping matters."

Another song starts up, this one a little slower, and Molly bounces in her chair until Wade gets the hint and stands. "We're going to dance for a bit," he says, then pulls her along by the hand to the dance floor.

Mark watches Jack's face as he stares longingly after the couple. "So what's this surprise?" he asks, and Jack turns to him.

From a jeans pocket Jack pulls a mini flask and sets it on the table. The flask is tiny, probably only holding two or three shots of alcohol. "Thought you might be as on edge as me," Jack says quietly, "and that we both might need a relaxant."

Mark chuckles, taking the flask in hand and unscrewing it to splash a modest amount of alcohol in each of their glasses. He screws the lid back on and hands it back to Jack, over half empty. "Too true," he says with a smile, and lifts his glass to toast Jack. Jack returns the gesture and they both take a sip. Immediately after they both make faces at the taste. "Yikes. Punch and whiskey, that's a no."

"My delicate Irish blood just wept a bit," Jack says, half-smiling, and takes another sip of the concoction. "Christ in a bath tub, that is foul."

"Liquor is liquor," Mark laughs quietly. They sit drinking for a few minutes, content to watch the party, until their glasses are empty and Mark feels slightly less tense. "Thanks for this, Jack. It helped take the edge off, you were right."

Jack gives a halfhearted shrug as he finishes his glass, then smiles. "Anything for you." The words are supposedly teasing, but the way Jack said it sounded entirely genuine.

Mark reaches across the space between them to steal a cookie off of Jack's plate while he watches the dancers. But as he pulls back, Jack glances down and catches him. "Hey!" he laughs, swatting at Mark's hand as he quickly pulls back and stuffs the cookie in his mouth. "That was mine, you glutton!"

"Wahv it? My bah." Mark smirks as he chews. 

Jack's eyebrows lower and he snatches a brownie and a strawberry off Mark's plate, ignoring his surprised, "Hey!" and following Mark's lead he stuffs the food in his mouth. He chews smugly, then moans softly. "Shit, this is really good. Have you tried a strawberry and a brownie together?"

Mark shakes his head, and before he can do it himself Jack's hand is there at his lips holding a brownie bite and a strawberry. "Open up," he whispers, and Mark can only obey. He opens his mouth, his eyes on Jack, as the Irishman places the food on his tongue. He closes his mouth slowly after Jack withdraws his fingers, the air around them heavy with feeling. Mark chews thoughtfully, then makes a happy noise of surprise when the flavours burst on his tongue. 

"Damn, that is good," Mark murmurs. He eyes Jack, who's looking at him with an intense gaze, and picks up a strawberry and a brownie bite. "Your turn."

"But I already--" He stops short when Mark presses the food against his lips. 

"Please," Mark says softly, and he holds eye contact until Jack is the first to look away, face red. But his mouth opens, and Mark feeds him the brownie-strawberry mixture. He doesn't mean to but his fingertips brush Jack's lips as he pulls away. The other man's startled gasp, followed shortly by a soft hum of pleasure, tells him that it wasn't unwanted. He watches Jack eat until he's finished, the atmosphere between them sultry and hot. Jack swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing as he looks back.

_God, I want to kiss him,_ Mark thinks heatedly. But he can't, he knows he can't. Jack made things crystal clear, and despite his new, flirty behaviour and his change in attitude over the past few days Mark still can't put him on the spot like that. He goes to stand when a hand slips over his on the table.

"Would you dance with me?" Jack asks lowly, barely audible over the din of activity around them.

Mark hesitates, and Jack notices. His hand pulls back quickly. "You don't have to, it's fine, I just felt like it," he rambles hurriedly, looking away and folding his arms as if he's afraid of what his hands will do next.

The first chance Jack gets to ask him to do something, he goes ahead and doesn't answer. Grimacing at his own stupidity, Mark stands and holds out his hand. "I'd love to," he says, smiling. Jack looks up at him, slowly reaching out to take his hand. Once he does, Mark pulls him to his feet and eases him close, his hand at the small of Jack's back, and starts swaying to the slow song currently playing.

"Mark," Jack protests lightly, "we're not even on the dance floor." But he melts into Mark's hold even as he says it, his body moving along in time with his partner's. 

"It's too crowded for you," Mark says simply. He decides to test the waters and lets his hand slip low enough to lift Jack's shirt and brush the bare skin above the waist of his jeans. Bending slightly to press his lips to Jack's ear, he murmurs, "Wouldn't want to make you feel hot."

Jack shivers, his fingers clenching on Mark's hand and shoulder. "No, that would... that would be bad." To contradict his words, Jack presses closer until their thighs touch. "Very bad, in fact. We should, ah, avoid such occurrences at all costs."

Mark smiles, his hand wandering until they sway with Jack's back to the room, and he reluctantly removes his hand from under the shirt and places it at his hip instead. He feels Jack squirm and says softly, "Your back is facing the crowd of people who we need to convince we're not having a sordid affair. I can't fondle you with them so easily able to watch."

"No," Jack sighs theatrically, "I suppose you can't. Oh well." 

They sway easily to the music, and somewhere in the second song Mark's thumb starts to rub Jack's hand. Mark notices the skin under the hand at Jack's hip grow warm, and his hand gets clammy. "Jack," he says lowly, his mouth near Jack's ear. "Do I make you nervous?" He pauses when he feels Jack stiffen considerably in his arms. "Is that why you've been so odd the past few days?"

"I didn't know how to make any sort of amends, after what I'd done to you," Jack says, then he hides his face in Mark's neck. But he doesn't stay there, pulling back after a handful of seconds and inhaling deeply. He seems to be bracing himself, biting his lip and squaring his shoulders. "I still don't know how I can even begin to say I'm sorry for what happened on Saturday. I just..." Jack trails off, and his expression grows wary, tired. "I had no qualms about sleepin' with you, but as soon as I had, about five seconds after I realized what we'd done, I felt like it would be a new step that I wasn't ready for. You're so fockin' ready to be with me, but I don't know if I'm worth it. I don't know if I can handle it." He runs a shaking hand through his hair, mussing it hopelessly. "And that's my fault, for startin' somethin' I wasn't sure I could finish. I'm so sorry, Mark, for puttin' you through that. And I'm sorry that I made you think that..." His lower lip trembles and he bites it, but nothing can help the sad waiver in his voice. "I'm so sorry I made you think that's all I wanted."

Mark's stomach fills with butterflies, a hopeful feeling. "So you... you do want to date?"

Jack looks at him, then down at his feet. "I want to try. I really want to try, Mark."

His chest floods with elation, his body full to overflowing with it and threatening to burst him apart. He smiles helplessly. "Look at me," he says gently, his hands finding Jack's and holding on tight. Jack looks up at him. "I love you," Mark murmurs. 

Jack smiles wide as his fingers thread into Mark's. "I'm gettin' there, myself," he replies.

"Can I kiss you?" Mark asks, even as he's already bending.

"Yes," Jack whispers.

Just as the word leaves his lips Mark's mouth replaces it. At the first touch, a slow spark sets off in his heart and spreads like a steady fuse burning through his body. Alarming in its potency but soothing in its cause, Mark sighs unevenly and holds onto Jack's hands for dear life. His lips brush gently along Jack's, and he hears the quick intake of breath that tells him he's doing something right. Teasing caresses, intermittently scattered with little nips and presses of his tongue keep Jack consistent in the small noises he makes. Mark urges him backward with his body, backs him up until they hit a solid surface--their table. It rattles noisily against the floor, making them jump apart as if scalded.

They stand watching each other for a long, quiet moment and then Jack, looking similarly jarred, says in a mumble, "That ought to have been our first kiss."

With a chuckle, Mark glances around them and notes the small gaggle of people that have stopped what they're doing to stare at the two of them. "It seems we've attracted a following."

Jack glances around, quickly pressing himself to Mark's front in order to escape the searching eyes around him. Mark holds him closer than is entirely necessary, but Jack doesn't complain in the slightest.

The troublesome trio makes themselves known again, pushing through the crowd to come face-to-face with the couple. Mrs. Collins points a bony finger at Mark, her face blotchy red with temper. "Now listen here, young man, you stop all this necking and nookying in public! I won't have you gallivanting about with your housemate just because he's far too kind to tell you no with people about!" she rages incoherently. "And if you're not serious about him then you tell him straight!"

Dilly Webber sends an alarmed look Mrs. Collins' way. "Good heavens, Agatha, we're here to congratulate the boys, not scold them."

"We're also here to rub their little piggy noses in it," Gertrude adds, giving Mark a look of pure vexation. "Insisting there's nothing going on, then not ten minutes later you're making even the teenagers blush!"

Jack grins widely. "Well, I mean... It's..." He shrugs, laughing. Mark squeezes him closer, inherently happy just at the simple sound. "There's somethin' to be said for healthy PDA, isn't there?"

Grinning knowingly, Dilly wiggles her fingers at him in a teasing way. "Darlin', that's some well-fed PDA you've got going on there."

The men both flush at that. "You stop that," Mark chastises the women. "Don't think I've forgotten the suggestive things you said to Jack." He narrows his eyes. "I'm watching you, all you kooky old birds."

That sets the group of women, and most of the amalgamated group of people around them, into a fit of laughter. Mark scowls, but Jack pats his chest and smiles. "Leave them alone, they're havin' a good time. I don't mind." He smiles wider. "I've got nothin' to be sad about right now."

Mark grins, all teeth and male pride. "Yeah? And who's to blame for that?"

Jack tilts his face up for a kiss, wiggling his eyebrows. "Give you one guess," he teases.

"Hmm," Mark murmurs thoughtfully, leaning forward to press his lips against Jack's forehead. From there he drifts down to his nose, which he kisses down the bridge of all the way to the tip, then past that to his lips where he pauses. "Chica."

"Got it in one," Jack says, straight-faced. "Truly, she held this entire operation together."

"She did," Mark agrees, kissing the corner of his mouth. His lips tingle from Jack's short beard. "A real American hero, she is."

"Anyone who can help get you two together really is an American hero," Gertrude hoots, and the people in her vicinity join her in laughter again. 

Mark straightens and points a finger at her in warning. "Quit eavesdropping," Mark says, snarky. Then he turns back to Jack, his whole face softening. Jack's expression melts into blissful, stupid happiness. Mark knows the feeling.

"Just so you know," he tells Jack lightly, quietly, "I'm not wearing any underwear. Food for thought." He winks. 

"Oh, come on!" Jack exclaims, his head tipping back in mirth as he laughs, then he looks at Mark with amusement. "Food for thought, eh? Well, I'm certainly hungry."

Mark grins, waggling his eyebrows outrageously. "But how patient are you?"

"I am the Dalai Lama of sexual tension, alright?" Jack huffs, but he smiles when Mark slings an arm across his shoulders casually, keeping him close to his side. "I'll wait this bitch out until the next millennium."

"You'll have me for that long, will you?" Mark teases, directing him onto the dance floor as people slowly meander back to what they were occupied with before the small commotion. "At least a millennium?"

"Maybe two," Jack sighs, "if you're good."

"Deal," Mark chuckles, and he pulls Jack into his arms. They dance for the rest of the night. 

 

Something rouses him from sleep, something warm and gentle. It dances along his face, fleeting at first and then lingering on his skin. He turns into the touch, sighing pleasantly, but it escapes when he leans forward to grab it. Grumpily Mark peeks an eye open, and he's met with the mischievous smile of his boyfriend, holding a plate of what smells like breakfast as he's bent over the bed--apparently to give Mark wakeful kisses.

"C'mon, sleepyhead," Jack chides, stooping to press his lips to Mark's before straightening fully. "Sit up and I'll spoon feed you this miraculous breakfast."

Instead of sitting up, Mark moves forward in bed and grabs Jack by the hips, lifting the bottom of his Shadow of the Colossus t-shirt and pressing his open mouth to the skin he shows.

"That is not what I said to do," Jack protests, but then hums happily when Mark licks at his lower stomach. "Ah, damn it, Mark, if I drop this I will aim for your head."

He lets out a chuckle against the pale skin under his lips, then reluctantly straightens and sits up. "Alright, I'm done. Feed me."

Jack gives him a wry look, but he sets the plate in Mark's lap. The farmer makes a contented noise as he begins eating. Jack sits on the bed beside him, running a light hand through Mark's bedhead. He accepts the slice of bacon that he's offered, and the forkful of eggs and the half-slice of toast. Mark never eats without him without sharing, despite knowing that Jack likely eats first and then spoils Mark with breakfast in bed on his one day to sleep in. It's a relatively new development, his sleeping in, brought about by a collaboration of Molly and Jack who worked out a loose schedule of what days Mark and Wade get to sleep in before heading to work, or to slack off entirely. Mark will admit, he likes the new structure much better.

As soon as his plate is empty Mark sets it aside and reaches for Jack, lifting him bodily onto the bed and resettling him on his lap. Jack quirks an eyebrow at him, mouth curved in a smile. Mark cups his face, thumbs brushing at his cheeks, and he spends a long moment staring into Jack's eyes. He leans forward and Jack comes to meet him halfway. The kiss starts slow, subtle in its needs, but Mark quickly discovers he's still starving. A hand slides up into Jack's hair, cautiously tugging to get his head back, and Mark latches onto his neck.

"Mmm, Mark," Jack says, a weak attempt at a denial. His hands push once against Mark's bare chest before stroking up, a teasing caress that gives Mark shivers and settles a hard heat in his belly. 

"Less talk, more morning sex," Mark growls, and he revels delightedly in Jack's surprised giggle as he pushes him down onto his back on the bed.

"Hmm, ah, Jesus, Mark, you insatiable freak," Jack chortles, trying to squirm away as Mark attacks him with kisses and touches. Mark's hands work at his belt and Jack adds, "Come on, leave a poor guy alone! I did--ahh--actually come up here for a purpose."

"Oh?" he murmurs, licking a stripe up Jack's neck, his hands already pushing his pants down over his hips. "And what's so important that I can't have dessert, huh?"

"Who has dessert after breakfast?" Jack retorts. In a futile break for freedom he rolls them and shoves Mark down. He sees his mistake a second too late and gasps loudly as Mark's hand reaches around him to rub tantalizingly at his hole, his ass exposed now that their positions are reversed with his pants and underwear bunched at his thighs. "Mark, I'm ser--ahhh! Fockin' shit, god, shit!" Already he's losing coherency at a fast pace since Mark's sucking hickeys into his flesh like he's getting paid to and both hands are occupied below his waist. 

Mark pushes him back down, taking the time Jack uses to try and gather himself to pull the painter's pants and underwear off completely. Jack holds Mark back with a hand at the base of his throat as he lowers again, and Mark's eyes darken with desire. 

"I have a surprise for you," Jack blurts, gnawing his lip at the look in his eyes. But Mark doesn't pause, firmly easing Jack's hand aside and nestling snugly against his hips. "Mark, Christ, would yo--"

"It can wait," Mark assures him, leaning down to claim his mouth. Jack's protests fall silent, and then he's moving into Mark's hands when they roam his down body again.

Seeing as Mark sleeps naked, he has nothing to remove but a bed sheet to be nude himself. He rises to his knees and tugs the fabric aside, lowering onto Jack after pulling his boyfriend's shirt up and over his head. He aligns their hips and grinds slowly, taking Jack's lips with his again, swallowing his groan.

Hands thread into his hair, a light presence, as Mark repeatedly moves his hips in a languorous circle, rubbing their erections between their bodies. At first the slide is awkward, their skin sticking slightly together, but with an adjustment the resistance lessens and the sensation improves to a warm, heavenly friction. 

Jack sighs blissfully when Mark kisses over the marks he made earlier. He smooths his hands up and down the slimmer man's sides, a barely-there touch meant to tease more than pleasure. Jack arches into Mark's body, his hips now rolling to meet Mark's movements, and he cries out softly when Mark bites down on the side of his neck. Immediately after, Mark apologizes with kisses, over and over on the reddened skin. 

Beneath him Jack moves restlessly, obviously craving more attention, and Mark obliges with a hard grind of his hips and presses him down into the mattress. Jack releases a harsh breath and the hands in Mark's hair grow demanding, clenching his hair and pulling him to Jack for a tender kiss.

Blindly Mark reaches beside him to the bedside table, hunting with one hand as Jack clings to him. He finds a condom and lube, finally, and directs his focus back on his partner. 

"Forget that," Jack says, huffy, and smacks the condom out of Mark's hand. It falls to the bed and Mark looks at Jack knowingly. 

"You think someone who didn't want a part of this all of a sudden gets to call the shots?" he teases, and Jack ducks his head sheepishly.

"Make love to me," Jack whispers huskily, glancing up and then back down again. His hands tense where they rest on Mark's shoulders. 

Jack must know what those eyes and that voice do to him. He has to, because whenever he wants something to go his way he uses them and Mark caves like the biggest pushover. Not that he needs much convincing for this particular activity.

Mark eases Jack down on the pillows and uncaps the lube. After spreading it over his fingers liberally he kisses his way up Jack's leg, starting at the ankle and slowly making his way up past his knee and all along the inside of his thigh. 

Jack laughs breathily, a quiet sound of arousal. "You've got no idea what that feels like right now. Those whiskers of yours."

"I've got a bit of an idea," Mark muses, briefly reaching up to brush his fingers over Jack's bearded cheek. The gesture brings a smile to Jack's face. His expression quickly turns shocked, then pleased when Mark penetrates him, slowly easing forward until he can go no farther. 

As he pulls back Mark lowers his mouth to Jack's body, painting paths with his lips up and down his stomach. He curls his finger with each insertion, rubbing before retreating again only to return. Jack's head tilts back as Mark teases Jack's nipple with his tongue, flicking the sensitive nub in time with his fingers. 

"Move things along here, lad," Jack says on a half-groan, his hips undulating to match Mark's steady hand. "I've still got a--mmm, surprise to show you after."

"Pushy, pushy," Mark faux-scolds, smiling. But he listens, easing it up to two fingers shortly after and then, when Jack is pink-faced and nodding his consent, he does three. 

It's barely a minute later when Jack says cheekily, "Just what part of "move it along" did you not gather?"

Mark grins and removes his fingers, planting kisses as he progresses slowly up Jack's body. When he reaches Jack's mouth he presses his lips to his chin, then murmurs, "Make love to me, Mark. Hurry up, Mark. Yeesh. Can't a guy just finger his boyfriend to death in peace?" 

Jack chuckles, shifting underneath him to capture his mouth. "Not this time, darlin'," he says after they break apart. "Alright, let me be very clear: put it the fock in already, and then screw me like that song from Titanic is playin' in the background."

"That can be arranged, you know," Mark says, moving to place a trail of kisses up Jack's jaw to his ear. "I'm nothing if not accommodating." He adjusts his hips and guides himself into Jack, pushing forward slowly.

"I think I'm the one who's doin' the "accommodatin'"," Jack says lowly, moaning. His legs inch up around Mark's waist as he seats himself fully inside Jack. Mark peppers kisses along Jack's neck, withdrawing halfway before slowly grinding back in. 

Mark doesn't go fast, or hard, but steady and deep. Jack's body moves like a wave, rolling with Mark's movements, their hips meeting like fluid clockwork. The burn builds like the tide coming in, small increments at first when Mark nibbles at Jack's ear, when Jack's nails drag along the planes of Mark's back. 

"Have I ever told you I love you?" Jack murmurs, and Mark pulls back from kissing his shoulder. "Have I told you today how much you mean to me?"

"If you did, tell me again," Mark replies softly, lowering to press kiss after kiss to his mouth. "Tell me all the time." He lingers, moulding their lips together, holding Jack with a hand at the nape of his neck. "Tell me with your eyes and all your smiles. Tell me with your body every night, and tell me with your angel voice." Smoothing back Jack's hair from his sweaty face, he kisses his forehead. "I'm never going to get tired of hearing it, so tell me."

"I love you," Jack whispers, clinging desperately as his hips drive into him, mercilessly thorough and precise. "I love your stupid fluffy hair and the, ah, dumb voice you use to talk to Chica. I love how you touch me when you find me after work, like it's the first thing you had to do and the last thing you want to do." Jack gasps as Mark grinds him once, hard, into the mattress and then resumes his even thrusts. "Mmm, I love... how your hands can't seem to leave me alone when we're together, how you touch and touch and there's never, hah, never any pressure. I love you, Mark, I love..." But then he bites his lip, and the words trail off into nothing.

Mark stares into his eyes, sees those baby blues swim with moisture. He bends and kisses Jack, so sweet and tender, and holds him there. With his hand not at Jack's neck he shoves his hips back onto his own, and beneath him Mark hears a choked noise and Jack's body trembles as he climaxes. Mark feels the dampness of his release between them but doesn't speed up (much) until he's so close he's gasping, and then he pulls out and pumps himself through his orgasm, moaning as he spurts across Jack's torso and even into his hair.

Lusty blue eyes stare at him, and then Jack cracks a smile, reaching up to touch his bangs. "I hope you realize you just earned yourself shampoo detail."

Grinning sheepishly Mark defends, "You should consider it a compliment. I blew so hard you almost got a facial."

"The romance, it's dyin' as we speak," Jack laughs, getting off the bed and to his feet. He wobbles, and Mark smirks. "I see that look, buster. Don't go gettin' all smug, or no more breakfast for you."

Mark stands, tossing the unused condom and lube bottle back into the bedside table drawer. "Hey, I'm only responding to evidence given." He smirks wider, following Jack as he creeps down the hall naked into the bathroom. "It's very compelling evidence."

Jack tosses a dry look over his shoulder, then leans and turns the shower on and adjusts the water temperature. "You're so goddamn lucky you're adorable, Mark."

Mark follows again as Jack steps into the shower, and shuts the curtain behind him. The shower itself is quick, Jack washing Mark and vice versa. But Mark doesn't leave it at that, and as Jack goes to turn the water off he grabs him and pushes him, gently but without room for movement, back against the shower wall. 

"Mark," Jack sighs, a hint of frustration in the sound. "We don't have time for this, your surprise--"

"In a moment," Mark murmurs, kissing him. As silencing techniques go it's effective, and it allows Mark to lift one of Jack's legs all the way and almost press two fingers back in before he notices what Mark's up to.

"Hey, you--! _Ahhhh_ ," Jack whines as they slide in, fingers digging into his slick skin. "What did I just--"

"You need to be squeaky clean," Mark whispers, holding his weight when he feels Jack's other leg start to shake. "We were very unsafe, after all."

"Mark, christ, it--" He cuts off on a gasp, because his boyfriend is driving his fingers at a savage pace. Jack's mouth hangs open, searching for words that will form, but nothing does.

Mark holds up him up and milks Jack for all he's worth, massaging his prostate until he comes again, untouched and quivering under the spray. He grins when Jack stares at him through hooded eyes, dazed from orgasm. "There, now you're clean."

He helps Jack out of the shower after another quick scrub--because now he really can't walk properly--and back to their bedroom. He sits Jack on the bed as he fishes out clothes for both of them.

"You are not allowed to get cross with me when you see your surprise and realize how long you delayed it," Jack warns him, stretching naked in the sunlight streaming through the window.

Coming to him with clothes in hand, Mark replies, "Noted. I doubt it'll be that big a deal, though. I mean, I'm having a great morning."

"I wonder why," Jack muses, slipping into his clothes and laughing when Mark makes a sound like a tiger and waggles his eyebrows at him.

Once they're presentable Jack stands steadily enough and fishes a long piece of fabric from the pocket of his jeans, discarded on the floor due to Mark's vigour. He hands it to Mark. "Put that on."

Mark lifts his eyebrows curiously at the blindfold. "Honey, I know I'm good but we really should take a break before we go again."

Jack rolls his eyes hard. "It's not for that, you jackass, it's for the surprise."

With a wide grin Mark does as he's told, tying the blindfold over his eyes and then holding out a hand for Jack to take. "Lead me, then, my dearest. Show me this wonderful surprise."

Leading him carefully downstairs, Jack's hand gets clammy in his as they make their way out the back door. Blindly Mark is led down the porch steps and out some way onto the lawn, where Jack stops him. Sunlight streams through the cloth over his eyes, brightening it but not much else. Jack's silent for a long moment, then, "You ready?" He's nervous.

"Yes," Mark says simply, and Jack unties his blindfold.

Blinking slightly at the luminosity of the day, Mark glances around before focusing on the thing immediately in front of him. It's a painting, finished and propped on one of Jack's easels. Mark brings a hand to his mouth, at a complete loss for words, because it's him. To the minutest detail, it's Mark's face and body on the canvas. The portrait is of him, his face relaxed in sleep and his nudity covered with a rumpled white sheet across most of his bottom half. The angle is from the side of the bed, Mark's head pillowed on his arm as he sleeps on his side while an actual pillow is nowhere to be found. It's like looking at a big photograph.

Mark's second hand comes up to his mouth, and they're both shaking. The attention to specifics is amazing, but that's not what Mark sees. He sees the softness of his features, painted in a midmorning sunshine that warms his skin until it's hazelnut. His hair texture is like looking at a black cloud on his head and the hand at his waist is properly illustrated with copious veins. But Mark sees the different shades of paint littering Jack's fingers as he brings out the painting, stroke by stroke, as Jack takes such care and time to recreate him, and with so much obvious feeling, that Mark is choked by it.

Jack has shown him none of the countless sketches he's done of his boyfriend, freehand and posed, not once in the eight months they've been together or the few weeks prior to them getting together. Jack painted him, exactly like this and with this level of emotion, just to show Mark. He turns to Jack, barely able to take his eyes off the painting, and just stares at him. His hands won't stop shaking, but he thinks if he moves them from his face then he'll just start crying.

"Is it okay?" Jack murmurs, hesitant as his gaze flicks between his painting and Mark's face.

A sob crawls out of Mark's throat and he turns back to the painting, speechless and trying to hold in his emotions. Jack comes up behind him, hands slipping around his waist and resting on his stomach, a comfort. Mark hides his face in his hands and cries, and he's angry as he does because his tears blur his vision too badly for him to see the painting when he looks up.

"I love you," Jack says, hands rubbing in soothing circles. His forehead presses to the back of Mark's neck. "I love you like a treasure, like a safe haven. That's what you were for me, the very first time I met you. Back then you didn't even know me and you still saved me, still kept me happy even when I didn't want it or think I deserved it." Jack's voice gets thick with feeling. "When I didn't trust you enough to give you what you wanted from me, what I knew I wanted to give, you waited for me and put up with every horrible thing I threw between us." 

Jack moves around him, stands in front of him and takes Mark's hands away from his face, his expression soft and nervous. "You loved me when I wasn't sure if I could love you back, and you never stopped even when you knew that." Jack's hands are shaking just as bad as his now. "I'm never goin' to deserve you, but I want to spend the rest of my life tryin' to."

With a short, broken sound Mark grabs him by the shoulders and into a bruising hug, his big arms trembling around him. His heart is so swollen with his depth of love that he may be drowning internally. "You..." But words are still too hard, his chest too full of feeling to express it all. 

Mark feels Jack's smile against his cheek, and holds him close under the bright sun.

**Author's Note:**

> I really really need to learn how to use chapters


End file.
